


heart upon the southern ground

by sassymajesty



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Alternate Universe - Southern, F/F, Happy Ending, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, also a pinch of Clarke/Finn, there's a healthy dose of Lexa/Costia but they're not endgame and there's no cheating involved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-01 03:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 51,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13286385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassymajesty/pseuds/sassymajesty
Summary: “Clarke, this is my girl- my fiancée.” Costia links their hands, hiding her face on her fiancée’s shoulder and chuckling as the woman looks at her with a fond smile, “I’m still getting used to it. This is Lexa.”Lexa.For a moment, Clarke takes her in, wondering what are the odds that two people have the same unusual name in the same small town. Because the woman who gave her a ride yesterday, with her polished looks and sly smirk, can’t be the same giddy woman standing in front of her with an honest to God cowboy hat on her head.But something about her eyes- fuck.If her hair was tucked into a neat low bun, if winged eyeliner was complimenting her green eyes- fuck.Reaching out her hand for Lexa to take, Clarke hurries to think of something to say, but the woman - Costia’s fiancée - beats her to it. “We’ve met before, actually,” Lexa’s voice is composed as she shakes Clarke’s hand, like it’s not a big deal that they met before.Forcing a smile and a polite nod, Clarke sighs because truthfully, it is not that big of a deal. If Clarke was smitten by her kindness and quick wit, that’s her own problem and she’ll have to deal with it on her own.





	1. somewhere south

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Living in a quirky small town my whole life and all my love for country music are to blame for a good chunk of this. And the fact that I can turn everything I touch into a Clexa AU.
> 
> Fair warning, all I know about the south comes from Southern Living and movies - so let me know if I'm getting things wrong or playing too hard on some stereotypes. If anyone has watched Hart of Dixie, you'll find some resemblance to it in the first chapters that is not mere coincidence.

Well before she sees any sign of civilization, Clarke is ready to give up, crumble in the middle of that gravel road and cry all the tears she’s been holding back for a month now. Her calves scream at her, the balls of her feet are catching on fire and she’s pretty sure she won’t be able to feel her toes ever again. Why the fuck did she think walking three miles in four inches heel was a good idea?

Heat stroke is her best guess.

Making the decision to move from Chicago, the place she had called home for almost two thirds of her life, and back to a little town in the ends of the earth had been only marginally harder than actually getting herself into the plane. Wells had had to physically push her past the gates, shoving a chocolate bar in her hand and babbling promises of visiting soon, and that’s more than anyone needs to know about how much she had struggled with finally realizing she had to go back to a town that hadn’t been _home_ in almost two decades.

It’s not like she left a whole life behind - well, she _did_ , but it wasn’t exactly a great life. Between spending the better part of the last decade going from the classroom to the hospital and having exactly one friend in that whole city, Clarke knows she would hardly be missed.

But she would miss the cold weather and getting snow well into the middle of March, she’d miss the ridiculously cheesy pizza she can’t get anywhere else, the stupid stainless steel bean that reflects her favorite skyline in the world, the leprechaun dying the Chicago River green every year. She’d miss the late night bars, the breweries, the cursed football team, the food, even the awful Lake Shore Drive she had to take every day.

And right at this moment, Clarke misses the ability to step to the edge of the sidewalk and raise her hand to hail a cab that will drive her anywhere she wants.

After the two hour flight and having to ask for a _soda_ after the bewildered look she got from a waiter when she asked for a pop, Clarke was ready to shrug, tell herself she tried, and buy a ticket for the next flight leaving for Chicago. But alas, she had a bus seat with her name written on it and a mother waiting for her with more comfort food than she would know what to do with

She had tried not to think about how she hadn’t seen her mom in almost half a decade and how she’s been screening her calls for the last six months. Her best friend had stayed in Chicago and Clarke would have to be a big girl and force herself to get her ass inside that bus.

Clarke hadn’t admitted it - not to her mom, not to Wells, not even to herself. But as she climbed up the creaky steps of a bus that would take her to the back of beyond and took her seat beside an old guy smelling of cheap cigarettes, Clarke couldn’t ignore how fucking terrified she felt.

It’s not that she doesn’t like change.

Quite the contrary, actually. She thrives in it, can never stay still for too long, is always looking for her next big adventure - be it spending a semester abroad working with children who didn’t speak her language or changing coffee brands. She likes change because it brings something new to her life, opens new doors she’d never consider peeking behind otherwise.

But moving back to where she spent her childhood is different, is the opposite of why she likes change. It doesn’t feel much like opening new doors as it does having ghosts swinging them wide open and smacking her over the head with things she’d rather not be reminded of. Oh, the _memories_ \- the memories are already threatening to swallow her whole and she’s not even there yet.

Clarke had braced herself against the wild swaying of the bus, forcing herself to lock away any thoughts about fishing in the lake with a fishing rod twice as tall as she were or running down the main square with her hair in pigtails and her foot bare, and before she realizes it, the bus had come to a halt.

She was home.

Well, not really.

The driver had stopped at a crossroad, near a sign that read “POLIS - 3 MILES” and winked at Clarke saying “ _This is as far as I can take you, hun_ ” in a heavy accent that she had all but forgotten about and the way he said it, with the consonants waiting for the vowels to catch up with them, brought something warm and familiar to her chest.

Considering she was the last passenger and the road ahead didn’t look quite like a running path, Clarke figured the nice man with the thick mustache could have very well taken a five minute detour to drop her off at the edge of town. But she had watched enough horror movies to know she’d be better off stepping out the bus and not pushing her luck.

As the bus drove off and left her standing beside a bench that was nearly crumbling under its own weight, Clarke stared at the sign. _What are three miles, anyway?_ , Clarke thought as she gripped her oversized luggage and strapped her purse around the handles. Three miles is just short of the distance she runs every morning, she could very well walk that much without even breaking a sweat.

But oh, apparently, there’s a huge difference between running three miles on a treadmill and walking three miles on a gravel road in the middle of summer while wearing four inch heels.

Fishing her phone out of the front pocket of her skirt, Clarke fruitlessly tries to boot it back to life, only to get a black screen and the little annoying sign telling her to plug it into a charger. For the tenth time in as many minutes, she curses herself from spending the whole trip playing some mindless game and draining her battery. She had needed the distraction - _badly_ , heavens know that she’ll bolt back to Chicago if she’s left alone with her thoughts for too long - but right now, she needs her damn phone so she can call her mom to go pick her up.

“ _Hey, mom. I know you’re not expecting me for another two weeks, but if I had stayed in Chicago one more day, I wouldn’t have come at all. So, can you pick me up two miles away from town?_ ” Yeah, Clarke doesn’t really want to have that conversation - she has flashbacks to the times she had similar ones, when she had to call her mom from a party or a holding cell. But she’d gladly put her pride aside for a moment if it meant that she couldn’t have to take another step under the blazing heat.

Clarke hears a car speeding towards her, the first one since she hopped off the bus a good twenty minutes ago, and her instinct is to be glad that there’s another human in this side of the end of the world. But it’s quickly overwhelmed by her _city girl instinct_. After all, she is a woman walking alone down a road with a patch of trees that seem very convenient for hiding a body in and she sticks out like a sore thumb in her high heels and designer blouse.

Tightening her grip on her luggage and readying herself to use it as a weapon if it comes down to it, Clarke silently prays for the car to just breeze past her, even if it means she will be left in a dust cloud that will cling to her lungs for days and probably die of heat stroke before she ever makes it to her mom’s clinic.

But of course she’s out of luck.

Because _of course_.

The driver slows down beside Clarke and she glances sideways just long enough to realize it’s not a car, but a _truck_ \- which is great, her lifeless body won’t even have to be shoved into the trunk of a car, they’ll just throw her in the back. She quickens her pace, keeping her eyes trained down the road and pretending her heart isn’t about to leap out of her chest.

“May I offer you a ride, ma’am?” The voice that reaches her lacks the depth Clarke was expecting and the surprise alone is enough to get a reaction out of her. She looks towards the driver’s seat and finds a woman, one hand on the steering wheel, one on the stick shift, her head tilted to one side.

She keeps walking and the truck keeps following along at more or less the same pace - it doesn’t take Clarke long to realize she’ll have to actually speak up, because apparently quickening her pace and avoiding eye contact isn’t as clear of a message as she had hoped for.

“I have a strong policy against getting chopped into a million pieces, but thanks,” Clarke says with a dry humor that she hopes is enough to make the woman drive away. She does feel marginally less worried about her safety with a woman trying to give her a ride, but still, female serial killers are real and Clarke refuses to be labeled as the (dead) dumb blonde who didn’t see the signs.

A snort catches Clarke’s attention and she turns, feeling more affronted than she might have the right to - oh, good to know a serial killer finds her amusing. But as she locks eyes with the driver, Clarke can’t help but let her defenses down a little bit. Between her green eyes glinting with amusement and her lips quirked up in one corner, like she’s trying not to grin for Clarke’s sake, the woman looks more like someone Clarke would like to wake up next to than someone who would throw her in a shallow grave.

Bringing the truck to a full stop in the middle of the road - which tells Clarke a lot about how busy traffic is around these parts - and leaning towards the passenger seat, the woman waits for Clarke to look at her again. “If it helps, I’m the deputy city manager. Not an axe murderer.” Clarke gets on her tiptoes and peers into the truck, searching for any axes or any other possible murder weapons, before nodding. “Just leave that down, I’ll get it for you.”

Her stomach flutters as she sees the woman jumping out of the driver’s seat and Clarke can’t tell if she’s fucking terrified that she will get killed right then and there, smitten with how gorgeous the woman looks as she circles the truck or simply taken aback by the gesture.

Someone going out of their way to help a stranger when they do not have to? Definitely not something you see very often above the Mason-Dixon line.

Clarke watches dumbfounded as the woman grabs her luggage and tosses it over the side of the truck like it weighs nothing - which is impressive since the luggage is almost half as tall as Clarke is and she made sure to pack nearly her entire wardrobe in it. As the driver, who’s looking less menacing by the second, secures her handbag to her suitcase, Clarke lets her eyes wander. The woman isn’t exactly dressed as a southern belle in her Chelsea boots and button down shirt tucked into her form fitting jeans, and Clarke can’t help but wonder about what Polis might have in store for her.

She averts her eyes away from the muscles stretching the woman’s rolled up sleeves and swallows past the cotton in her throat - suddenly, Clarke is _very_ aware that she’s in the south and ogling pretty women won’t go down as well as it did back in Chicago.

The woman turns to her once she makes sure her luggage is well stored, gently wiping her palm on her jeans before stretching out her hand for Clarke to shake. “I’m Lexa, by the way,” the woman- _Lexa_ says, as if introducing herself would somehow calm Clarke’s nerves - it does. “You can ask anyone in Polis, they’ll assure you I am not a mass murderer.”

“Clarke,” she offers her name, because it seems fair, “And you bet I will.”

Making a mental note to ask her mom about Lexa, the deputy city manager, Clarke climbs into the truck. The worn leather seats have seen better days and rolling down the windows mean doing some serious muscle work to turn the handle, but as the truck sputters to life, Clarke lets herself feel all the nostalgia it brings her.

If she closes her eyes, she can smell a hayfield that has just been cut, can pretend someone else is behind the wheels, can imagine a whole life like this.

“Let me guess,” Lexa says as they pick up speed, the breeze almost messing up her carefully arranged bun, “New York?”

Clarke turns away from the window and the wind makes her hair whip at her face. She sure looks as composed as she feels. “Chicago,” she says plainly, her voice rising over the radio - some twangy country song fills the air and Clarke itches to turn it off or switch it to a station where actual twenty first century music is playing.

“Oh,” Lexa quirks her eyebrow in surprise, glancing at Clarke for a moment before looking back to the road ahead of her, “I lived in Andersonville when I worked with Freeborn and Peters.”

Her mind barely registers that Freeborn and Peters is the firm that represents the hospital she used to work at, that they might have crossed paths if Clarke had been less diligent in her work and had a few lawsuits over her head. But it’s something else entirely that catches her attention,

“Andersonville?” Clarke doesn’t add “ _as in one of the two gay neighborhoods Chicago has, Andersonville?_ ” but it’s pretty clear in her tone. Part of her knows that she might have ended up there without knowing it, that maybe she chose to live there because it was close to her work or cheaper than another neighborhood. But some part of her still wonders. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Lexa quirks her lips up in a sweet, almost dreamy smile, as if she’s remembering something that makes all the hardships in life worth it. “I guess… I guess this is home,” Lexa turns to her, “I couldn’t live anywhere else and I tried that long enough.” Clarke imagines Lexa being miserable in Chicago, missing the heat and the small town, missing everything Clarke is dreading. “And what are _you_ doing here?”

It’s a simple question, meant to keep the conversation going. But Clarke feels like a deer caught in the headlights - because she doesn’t know what she’s doing here. _Running_ , a small voice in the back of her head grunts disappointedly at her, _you’re running just because things got hard_. “Returning home, maybe? I’m still not sure.”

Maybe it’s her tone, more defeated than someone returning home should sound, maybe it’s the way she gazes out her window and sinks further into the leather seat, but their conversation comes to a halt - which is a shame because Lexa has a soothing timbre to her voice, something in its cadence that calms Clarke in an odd way that isn’t completely unwelcomed.

If anything, talking had been a good distraction.

Clarke shouldn’t be nervous, she knows that much. Despite ignoring more calls from her mom than actually answering them, they had worked out as many details as possible about Clarke moving back home. She has a plan, something she didn’t back in Chicago.

But as the woods give way to the sweet potato fields that soon turns into the outskirts of the small town she grew up in, Clarke feels her stomach sinking. Maybe she should have stayed in Chicago and made things work, no matter how difficult it would have been and how miserable she would be for the next year.

“Where can I drop you off?” Lexa breaks the silence, pulling her out of her reverie as they drive into town. “Maybe at the inn?”

Clarke misses on the curious look Lexa gives her, too caught up on the memories she thought she was ready for. They drive past the house with the crooked roof that used to be Clarke’s favorite trick or treating spot and the playground where Clarke fell from the monkey bars and had to get stitches on her knee. If she squints, she can make out the elementary school behind the park, can remember the bakery down the road from it.

“Anywhere is fine, really,” Clarke says, her voice distant. Polis doesn’t seem to have changed much, if at all in the last two decades, she should be able to find her way to her old home from anywhere. Blinking away the memories she doesn’t have the strength to deal with quite yet, Clarke turns to Lexa, “But uh, I’m heading to the clinic, if that’s on your way.”

The words tumble out of her lips before Clarke can think them through - maybe there is something in the southern air that reminds her of her mother nudging at her seven-year-old self to be more polite and remember her “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir” and “please” and “thank you”.

“The clinic- Are you hurt?” Lexa frowns at her, giving her a once over as if she’s looking for any broken bones or wounds that need tending to, before stepping harder on the gas, speeding through the mostly empty streets.

“What? No. No, I’m fine,” Clarke can’t help the amusement in her voice, can’t help smiling when Lexa breathes out heavily and steps on the brakes now that she knows no one is dying, “My mom works there.”

Clarke keeps her gaze on Lexa, because looking at the houses and stores they’re driving past feels more than she can handle on so little sleep. But it’s entertaining to see the frown in between Lexa’s eyebrows deepening as realization sinks in, “Wait, are you Dr. Griffin’s kid?”

Being called _Dr. Griffin’s kid_ makes her feel like she’s back in second grade and the old guys who were always playing chess in the main square agreed to look after her until her dad could pick her up. It makes her feel the kind of warmth she’s been running from her whole life. “Wow, I don’t remember the last time someone called me that, but sure.”

“I’m sorry, I just-” Lexa grips the steering wheel harder than she needs to as she makes a turn and stumbles on her words, “I heard people saying _Dr. Griffin’s kid_ was coming to town, they never mentioned you were-” Clarke sees the tip of Lexa’s ear turning pink, but somehow, knowing she had been the talk of the town doesn’t surprise her. “I thought you’d be younger.”

“Do I look that old?” Clarke teases, because it’s easier to make a near stranger squirm than prepare herself for seeing her mom for the first time in too long.

“No, it’s just- the way people talked-” Lexa sighs and drives down a street that Clarke is way too familiar with. Polis really hasn’t changed at all, “I thought she had had a daughter in the years she lived away. I figured you’d be fresh out of college, maybe.”

Lexa parks in front of the medical practice, a one story building with exposed brick and metal fencing, the sign Clarke remembers helping her grandpa paint still hanging above the glass doors. Clarke bites her bottom lip, willing her lunch to stay down as she takes in the place she promised herself she’d never step food again.

“Well, I am fresh out of my residency program. You were close,” Clarke climbs down the truck, slamming the door behind her. She still can’t quite wrap her mind around the fact that she’s back in Polis, standing on the sidewalk she used to draw on with chalk, and she’s so lost in thought she barely realizes Lexa pulling her luggage out of the back of her truck.

Tucking her handbag on top of her suitcase and scooting them both beside Clarke, Lexa turns to look at the clinic. “Oh, you came here to run the practice with your mom?”

That’s more than enough to make Clarke snap out of it - her plans do include her working with her mom in the clinic for the majority of the next year, until she’s allowed back into Chicago’s medical industry, but _running_ the practice with her mom is something she definitely does not see herself doing.

But Clarke has known Lexa for all of ten minutes, she doesn’t need to spill her life problems just yet. Instead, she shrugs, turns to get a better grip on her luggage, and looks at Lexa with what she hopes is a better put together smile than how she feels inside. “Maybe. We’ll see. I’m not even sure I’ll stay in this town for long.”

The way the words tumble out of her, running over each other in a shaky string, tells Clarke that no, her façade isn’t fooling anyone.

Lexa doesn’t comment on that, simply shoves her hands on the back pockets of her jeans and nods her goodbye as Clarke covers the distance between the truck and the clinic, “I guess I’ll see you around then. If you stay.”

Only when she stares at her faint reflection on the glass door is that Clarke realizes she forgot to thank Lexa for the ride.

She’s not looking forward to what’s on the other side of that door - not in the metaphorical sense, anyway. Because she knows her mom is probably inside, maybe tidying up after the day’s appointments, and they haven’t seen each other in far too long. Clarke is ready to hug her until neither of them can breathe. But crossing that door means accepting her failure, means moving on from her dreams and back to the town she grew up in, means making a life where she has run from ever since she knew how.

And Clarke might have cut all her ties back in Chicago and have all her belongings packed either in her massive suitcase or in a moving truck that is coming down in a few days, but she still doesn’t feel ready for it.

Breathing in so deeply her lungs feel like they could burst, Clarke pulls the door open and hoists her luggage inside, letting panic run on her every vein instead of trying to fight it. She has been panicking for a good while now, and no matter how many breathing exercises or yoga poses she tries, it’s just easier to let it run its course and hope it doesn’t make her throw up.

“Hey, hey, we’re actually closed for the day already,” Clarke looks up to see a man jogging towards her from down the hallway. She takes him in dumbfounded, her mind working slowly as she registers that this tall and lean man, with a five o’clock shadow and sultry eyes _isn’t_ her mother, “Are you hurt? Do you need anything?”

He steps closer carefully, a hand up in the general “ _I come in peace_ ” sign that doctors have down to an art and Clarke forces herself to wake up and get back to the present. She didn’t notice the little bell that rang when she opened the door, its faint ringing still sounding somewhere, and she clears her throat, “I’m looking for my mom. Dr. Griffin?”

“Oh. _Oh_!” his face lights up with recognition and he shuffles forward, taking her hand with a boyish grin on his lips, “You’re the daughter. Clarke, right?” Clarke nods as she shakes his hand, and she can’t help but frown at the warm welcome, “I’m Jackson, I work with your mom. She has told me so much about you I almost feel like I know you already. Come on, she’s in the back. She’ll be thrilled that you’re here early!”

Clarke follows him, trying to work the frown away from her face. It’s odd to have a stranger know about her because _her mother_ talked about her, it’s odd to think her mom is that excited about her coming back home. Most parents would dread the idea of having their daughter on her late twenties moving back home, but apparently her mom isn’t most parents.

Clarke has talked to two people so far and _both_ seem to know way more about her than her next door neighbors did back in Chicago.

As she makes her way down the hallway and into what she assumes is an exam room, Clarke tries to shake away the feeling of having stepped into an alternate dimension.

She had spent most of her childhood in this same town, running down these same streets, playing on the town’s square across the clinic while her dad walked inside to bring her mom lunch. But she had shoved those memories deep down within her, had started anew in Chicago and forgotten all about the Southern hospitality - nobody took that as a joke here, and it made her feel welcome as much as it weirded her out.

The dude - was it Jackson? - comes back with her mom and Clarke barely has time to register the wide smile on Abby’s face before arms wrap around her in a tight hug. Clarke lets herself sink into her mom’s embrace, feeling as safe as she did when she was seven years old with a scraped knee. It’s been far too long since she hugged her mom and she needs it now more than she ever did.

Because the future is scary for the first time since her dad died and she needs her mom.

It’s been eight years since Abby moved back to Polis to run the clinic her dad left her - to call it a family business is an understatement - and Clarke stayed back in Chicago to finish college. Then college turned into medical school which turned into an excuse to never come down to visit.

It’s not that Clarke didn’t like the small town and all its quirks, but every corner is a different memory she prefers to keep away. It might have been her mom’s hometown, but everything about it reminds her of strong arms holding her up like an airplane until she was laughing so hard she couldn’t stay still anymore. Polis reminds Clarke of her dad and how soon he was taken from her.

But her mother came up to Chicago often enough that Clarke refusing to come to Polis was never an issue. They saw each other during holidays, where Clarke would study most of the time while Abby cleaned her apartment from floor to ceilings to windows to every crevice she could find because it was never clean enough for her standards.

She came up to Chicago until she didn’t, until her visits became shorter and further apart, until the clinic asked too much of her and leaving it alone for days at a time wasn’t an option anymore. Their weekly calls became monthly ones, Abby’s visits got pushed back more and more, and before Clarke realized it, it had been three entire years since her mother hugged her like she was still that same giggling girl that just wouldn’t go to sleep.

“Oh, Clarke,” Abby breathes out when they part, holding Clarke’s face in between her palms as if she’s scared her daughter might just melt away, “I can’t believe you’re here.” Clarke sighs, because she can’t quite believe it either, but her mom has an ear splitting grin and tears in her eyes, so Clarke just forces a smile. “Your grandpa would be so proud of you, honey.”

It hits Clarke like a punch to the gut.

She takes a step back from her mom, reclaiming some sense of personal space. “Proud because of what, exactly?” Abby still grips Clarke’s arms, as if letting go of her daughter after three whole years without seeing her is too much, but Clarke can’t keep the bitterness from her voice, “Not visiting for almost twenty years or only coming back because I need a job?”

“He’d be proud because you had the guts to come back at all, when it’d be easier to start over somewhere new,” Abby starts, so sure of what she’s saying that Clarke can almost start to believe her, “I am proud of you for coming back, for helping me with the clinic, for embracing all of this again, Clarke.

“Mom,” Clarke untangles her arms from her mom’s grip and wipes at her brow, giving herself a moment to think through her words, “You know this is just temporary, right? We talked about this. Next year, I’ll get a fellowship as an OBGYN and I’m moving back to Chicago.”

The tight lipped smile her mom gives her tells Clarke she could have worded that better. But Abby pats her hand before letting go completely, “I know, I know. I’m just happy you’re here.” She shrugs her white coat off and hang it on the first hook she sees, turning to Clarke with her eyes glinting in sheer happiness - she has her daughter back, that’s all that matters, “Come on, help me finish closing up and we’ll go home, get some food in you. Have you eaten at all today?”

She remembers eating, but today has been so long that it takes her a moment to place what she ate, “Uh, I had Cheetos for lunch,” Clarke says, knowing very well she can’t call that a proper lunch, but there’s only so much you can get in convenience stores along the road.

“Oh, good gracious,” Abby mutters under her breath with such an scandalized face that Clarke decides to leave out the Skittles she had for dessert.

Closing up the clinic turns into showing Clarke around, which slows them considerably. But by the time they’re ready to go, Clarke has seen the two offices, the exam room, the room with a handful of beds where patients can get their IV meds administered - Clarke refuses to call that a _patients’ wing_ , because it’s just not. Abby explains to Clarke what can be treated in here and what they need to redirect to the hospital in the city half an hour away, but she does it in such a light tone that Clarke only realizes she had her first lesson on _how to run a small town clinic 101_ when they’re walking home.

It’s the same place her grandfather lived all his life, where Abby grew up, just two blocks away from the clinic. The idea that she could walk to work everyday is baffling for Clarke. Back in Chicago, she’d consider herself lucky if she could find a place two _miles_ from the hospital she worked at - or really, anywhere that took less than half an hour to commute to and from.

They get home as soon as Abby finishes about a case she had a few months back that ended up with her covered in blood trying to stop someone from bleeding out and Jackson speeding towards the hospital on his car. The house is pretty much the same as she remembers it - a garden with more flowers than she could name in the front, a big front porch with matching rocking chairs, a lawn that goes on until it touches the neighbor’s.

Clarke remembers the lazy Sunday afternoons she spent sprawled on that front porch, drawing and coloring until her fingers hurt or her grandpa brought her some sweet tea. She remembers running on the lawn and watching the clouds change shape with the dog her grandpa had, helping paint the house in the summertime perched on her dad’s shoulders, walking home in the sunset with her knees scraped and a craving for pimento cheese sandwiches.

Memories like that are the ones Clarke has been running from.

They get inside and Clarke takes in the banister she used to slide down on and the foyer that has always been perfect for sock slides. The house still holds the same feeling that it did when she was a child, but there’s a sectional sofa where the quilted loveseat used to be and the new TV set doesn’t take three grown men to move around. It’s two worlds crashing and Clarke has a headache just trying to make sense of it all.

Abby tells her to go freshen up and settle down on her new room - third door to the left, where grandpa’s office used to be - while dinner isn’t ready. Clarke doesn’t argue, simply hoists her suitcase upstairs and plops down on the bed, bouncing slightly as she closes her eyes and lets the day’s events sink in.

She had woken up in Chicago, where she could get any food she wanted delivered to her doorstep and didn’t know the name of more than three people that lived in her building. She would fall asleep in Polis, where she could hear _crickets_ chirping into the night and everyone seems to know her.

It takes her more time than she’s willing to admit to peel herself from bed, dig in her suitcase for shorts and a top that didn’t feel out of place, and drag her butt to the shower. Clarke lets the hot water work on her muscles, wash away the stink of airplane and failure from her skin, and by the time she’s walking down the stairs, she can smell dinner.

Maybe a homemade meal will cure her heartache.

To Abby’s credit, she doesn’t ask Clarke about her life in Chicago, about why she couldn’t stay there and chose to crawl back home when she refused to even visit. And Clarke is thankful for that - there will be time to explain everything, but she refuses to touch the subject with a ten foot pole before she’s at least four margaritas into the night.

But having to sit through dinner with her mom, after not seeing her for three years, and listen to her going on and on about what everyone Clarke knew when she was ten years old was doing with their lives now? Not her idea of a good time.

Friday nights back in Chicago had a complete different feel to them.

If Clarke hadn’t been exiled from where she calls home, she’d be having Chinese take out in her underwear, getting ready to fight the traffic into the city to get to a bar where her friends would be waiting for her with tequila shots.

Instead, she’s having chicken pot pie that her mom made from scratch and taking her sweet tea out to the porch, where they can swing gently on the matching rocking chairs and watch the sun setting in the horizon, casting an orange glow that makes everything feel like a dream.

As she sips on her sweet tea, Clarke can feel the sneaky tendrils of nostalgia clinging to her ribs, squeezing hard and pulling at them, until she feels like she can’t breathe, no matter how much more clean the air is this far south. But it has less to do with being back to where she spent her childhood and more to do with the aching to see a building rise more than three stories.

She misses the city.

She feels like a gigantic failure and she misses the comforting anonymity from the city.

It takes her a moment to notice the man crossing the front lawn and walking lazily towards them, eyes glued to a box in his hands. Her first instinct is to yell, run and call the police all at the same time, but her mom seems oddly calm with this stranger creeping up on them in the near dark.

“Ab, do you know if Clarke likes-” the man stops mid sentence as he looks and notices that Abby isn’t alone. He darts his eyes in between them and Clarke can’t help but curl her lips as if she’s tasting something sour - _Ab_ was her dad’s nickname for her mom. “Oh, hey. Is this- is this her?

“Yes, honey,” Abby says with a sweet tone and sweeter smile. Oh, so he isn’t a stranger after all.

“Hi, Clarke. I’m Marcus,” he skips up the steps and stretches his hand for Clarke. She gets up and takes it, shaking it out of pure obligation - she knows very well her mother would _pinch_ her as if she’s still a child if she didn’t, “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like this, I thought you weren’t coming for another couple weeks.”

Again, someone Clarke has no idea who they are seem to know about her coming to town, seem to know more about her than she’s comfortable with.

“I came earlier,” she says dryly, studying Marcus. He’s dressed in jeans and tucked in dress shirt, which seems to be high in Polis fashion, and his greying beard goes well with the laughter lines he has around his eyes. Still, she feels uneasy with him talking about her with her mom, “Who are you?”

“Honey, this is Marcus Kane, he’s the high school principal,” Abby says and Clarke narrows her eyes at her - Marcus being the school principal doesn’t really explain why he’s walking up her mom’s porch with a gift in his hands. Abby gets up from her chair and wraps an arm around  his waist, exchanging a look with Marcus before looking back at Clarke, “We’re dating.”

“Okay,” Clarke crosses her arm in front of her, her sweet tea long forgotten on the side table in between the chairs. She half tries to keep the judgement from her tone, but can’t managed that much, “When did this happen?”

“A few weeks after you stopped answering my calls,” Abby answers without missing a beat and Clarke realizes how exhausted she is - so her mom has a boyfriend, it’s not a big deal, it wouldn’t be a big deal if she were well rested and not fighting her every emotion.

“Well, don’t let me get in your way, then,” Clarke waves, as if she had interrupted their date and would like nothing more than leave them alone. She manages a smile, hoping it looks more real than it feels, and bids them goodnight, “I’m going to bed, today has been a long day.”

Clarke thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep without cars buzzing past her window and every other city sound that has become white noise for her, but she’s asleep the moment her head hits the pillow.

When she wakes up, with the sun on her face and the late summer breeze playing on the drawn curtain, Clarke feels more tired than she did the night before. She had a hard time staying asleep, tossing and turning in between dreams of a button down shirt tucked into tight jeans and driving past corn fields in the sunset glow. It takes her longer than she thought it would to settle for an outfit - she goes with high waisted shorts and loose blouse tucked into them, high heels to match - and she drags herself down the stairs again.

Her mom is nowhere to be seen, but she makes her way to the kitchen, finding a fresh pot of coffee waiting for her and the little box Marcus was holding the night before with a little note on top, written in Abby’s tight handwriting: _Clarke, I’ll be at the clinic for the morning. Come by on your way to buy groceries, if you don’t mind doing that for me. The list is on the fridge. Love, Mom. P.S.: Marcus left you this and hopes you like it_.

Opening the box, Clarke fishes out a coffee mug, with “ _hey, y’all_ ” written in cursive and the bottom half covered in golden glitter. It makes Clarke smile. For the first time since she got here, it makes her feel really welcome to this town.

She makes a mental note to thank Marcus for the gift and apologize for being a dick - maybe even write him a thank you note, if people in the south really write those - and washes the mug before pouring a healthy serving of coffee in it. She plucks the shopping list from the fridge, going over it, trying to remember where the grocery store is as she sips her coffee. Clarke can’t help the soft moan that leaves her throat - you just can’t find coffee this good in the city.

As she walks past the town square, Clarke has to admit Polis has a charm that big cities could only dream of having. She has loved this town ever since she first stepped foot in it, at three years old, all swaddled up in thick coats and thicker mittens, ready for a Midwestern winter that would never make its way this far down south.

But the memories jump at her from every corner.

She waves at the two old men playing chess under a pompous tree, wondering if they’re the same old men she used to see when she was little or if people just start playing chess in the town square after a certain age. She sees the spot she used to hide away from her dad whenever they’d go to the same grocery store she’s going to, begging for just five more minutes of playing with her friends before being dragged back home.

She sees the fountain that would light up after every parade and the gazebo where she learned how to play cards, she sees the benches where her parents would take her to eat her ice cream on Sunday evenings. She sees the library peeking past the trees and can almost hear the librarian shushing her whenever she were too loud - which, truthfully, was often.

Memories are _everywhere_ and it’s all too early to deal with any of them.

“Well, well, if it’s not Clarke Griffin as I live and breathe,” someone Clarke doesn’t quite recognize calls her, with a raised eyebrow and a southern drawl as she walks towards her, hand in hand with another girl, “They really do say the good son always comes back home.”

Something about the woman makes a sparkle come to life in Clarke’s mind - maybe the mischief in her eyes or the child-like grin that somehow doesn’t feel out of place. She stops mid step as the woman all but skips closer and Clarke takes her in - her warm brown skin seems to glow in the morning sun as her dress swirls around her, and her tight curls- Oh. _Oh_.

“Costia?” Clarke yelps when she can finally place the girl, although in her mind Costia still has wild curls bouncing up and down as they run down this same town square, hand in hand, giggling as they try to flee from their parents, “Oh, my _god_!”

Strong arms curl around her and Clarke reacts to the hug instantly, clinging to Costia’s dress to keep her close, smiling against her warm shoulder as the years between them fall apart. She remembers Costia as a skimpy nine year old who’d always run ahead of her, more often than not towards the tire swing on the lake in her dad’s farm, leaving a chubby Clarke to catch up as she struggles for air.

It’s a far cry from the woman in front of her, all warmth and an elegance that can only come from being raised in the south.

“Gosh, I’m so rude,” Costia loosens her hug and takes a step back, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears in the morning sun. She keeps Clarke’s arms in her hands for a moment, a bright smile illuminating her face, one that Clarke knows is mirrored in her own face, and then turns to the woman beside her, “Clarke, this is my girl- my _fiancée_.” Costia links their hands, hiding her face on her fiancée’s shoulder and chuckling as the woman looks at her with a fond smile, “I’m still getting used to it. This is Lexa.”

 _Lexa_.

For a moment, Clarke takes her in, wondering what are the odds that two people have the same unusual name in the same small town.

Because the woman who gave her a ride yesterday, with her polished looks and sly smirk, can’t be the same giddy woman standing in front of her with an honest to God cowboy hat on her head. Her curls, thick and long, fall gently over her shoulders that are left naked by the long boho dress she’s wearing, and her tortoiseshell glasses make her look a lot younger than the Lexa from yesterday.

But something about her eyes- _fuck_.

If her hair was tucked into a neat low bun, if winged eyeliner was complimenting her green eyes, if she lost that ridiculous cowboy hat- _fuck._

Reaching out her hand for Lexa to take, Clarke hurries to think of something to say, anything that won’t give away her shock, but the woman - _Costia’s fiancée_ \- beats her to it. “We’ve met before, actually,” Lexa’s voice is composed as she shakes Clarke’s hand, like it’s not a big deal that they _met before, actually_.

Forcing a smile and a polite nod, Clarke sighs because truthfully, it is not that big of a deal. Lexa gave her a ride into town and nothing else. If Clarke was smitten by her kindness and quick wit, that’s her own problem and she’ll have to deal with it on her own.

“Did you now?” Costia chirps with a smile, sounding genuinely curious as she leans back to look at her fiancée.

Fighting a smile that creeps its way to her lips, Lexa answers simply, “I gave her a ride yesterday, when I was coming home from court.”

“Oh, right!” Costia says with a slight jump, as if just remembering they were talking about Clarke, who were standing right in front of them - Clarke can’t help but feel like she’s a fifth wheel. “The bus doesn’t come in here. You poor thing!”

Clarke frowns, wondering how could someone actually say those words without sounding condescending or straight up fake. It takes her a moment to realize Costia really does feel for her, “Your fiancée saved me from getting home crippled. Who knew walking on a gravel road wearing heels was that hard?”

“I’m guessing everyone,” Costia lets a belly laughter as she reaches out to touch Clarke’s arm, which she takes as a ‘ _I’m just kidding_ ’ gesture, “But I’m glad you’re home safe! How’s Abby?”

Her tone takes Clarke a little aback - Costia sounds so _genuine_ with whatever she says that it shifts something within Clarke. “She’s good, she’s at the clinic,” Clarke answers, finding herself sharing more than she first meant to “I’m heading there in a little while.”

“It’s good to see you coming over to help your mom,” Costia says as she reaches for Lexa again, linking their hands in a loose grasp before her smile widens, “She would go on and on about her doctor daughter. I never thought I’d see the day you’d come back.”

“Me neither.” If her voice comes out more somber than the warm morning light calls for, Clarke doesn’t try to fix it.

Because, between working a sixty hour week at the best teaching hospital of Chicago and still finding time to run a clinical trial _and_ publish a handful of articles in the last year alone, the last place Clarke thought she’d be after finishing her residency program was back in Polis, making small talk to her childhood best friend.

Clarke had _plans_ \- plans that had changed close to nothing since she were in junior high.

If she focuses hard enough, she can remember the exact night she wrote down her plans for the next decade and a half of her life. It was a school night and she should’ve been in bed hours ago, but she stared bleary eyed at her computer screen until she figured that Northwestern was her top choice for college - the _only_ choice she’d accept.

Northwestern had the best premedical program in Illinois, which would be heavy and hard to keep up with if she weren’t entirely focused on studying, but it would grant her an early MD acceptance into Feinberg School of Medicine. If she managed to be one of the six students accepted into the program, she’d complete medical school and glide smoothly to their obstetric and gynecology residency program. Then she would apply for whatever fellowship program sparked her interest - Clarke left that part, and that part alone, out of her plans because a lot could change in the _decade_ she had ahead of her.

Clarke had followed her plans to a tee. But then it all came crashing down on her the moment her plans became less than precise.

Her time in residency made her realize she wanted to work with something challenging - but she didn’t have much to go on from there.

Delivering healthy babies after an easy pregnancy without any further complications almost bored her to death, and she got more than a few dirty looks when she mentioned that to her classmates. Most of them would _pay_ to help healthy babies come into this world and see the look of pure joy their moms got when they first held their babies and it’s not that Clarke didn’t appreciate that job, she _did_. But she had always wanted to be something more, to help the sick babies, the one that almost didn’t make it, the ones that needed someone focused on them and them only.

That’s when she applied for maternal-fetal medicine fellowship, knowing she’d get it - because she was the best resident that hospital could ask for, no one deserved that fellowship more than she did.

But then she didn’t get it.

When she went to the program director’s office and demanded to know why the _hell_ she hadn’t gotten that spot, Clarke got an answer that had never occurred to her. She can still hear Dr. Cartwig’s voice as she explained to her, in the same inside voice the doctor used when she had to deliver bad news to brand new parents, that Clarke wouldn’t get a fellowship until she learned how to see patients as _patients_ and not just another puzzle to solve and suggested she spend a year working as a family doctor.

What Clarke had considered a great skill - after all, getting too attached to patients never ended well when difficult decision had to be made -, Dr. Cartwig saw as a lack of empathy that wouldn’t help her when treating sick babies.

Fine. She’d learn some damn empathy. Except no clinic in all of Chicago was hiring and she had no intention of going somewhere to work as a volunteer.

So she came back.

Clarke had plans and not one of them, not even her most remote backup plan, involved her coming back to Polis and working at her grandpa’s clinic as a family physician.

The silence stretches between them and Clarke makes no effort to fill it, her mind too full of _what if_ s for her to even pay attention to the two women standing almost awkwardly in front of her. Right before the silence becomes uncomfortable, Lexa clears her throat, making a wide gesture towards her, “As you can see, I’m not a mass murderer.”

“Yeah, I actually still have to check that,” Clarke teases, snapping out of her self pity trance and pointing to the cowboy hat, balancing precariously on top of her head as the wind threatens to blow it away, “But your hat gives you some bonus trust points.”

“Oh, that’s my father’s!” Costia smiles, wrinkling her nose towards Clarke before reaching out her free hand to pick it up, settling it on her own head. It looks good on her, the light wool felt contrasting with the deep color of her skin, and Costia seems to know that much, considering the way she tilts it. “Lexa insisted on asking him my hand in marriage,” Costia leans in to stage-whisper something to Clarke, “Because you know that two girls getting married is as tradicional as it gets,” then she goes back to her normal tone, “And he gave it to her as a blessing, I assume.”

Lexa scoffs, clearly offended by the joke, “Well, excuse me for trying to do the right thing.”

Costia throws her head back in a hearty laughter before wrapping both her arms around Lexa’s and placing a kiss on her cheek, “I love it that you do, you know that.” Lexa relents and nods, like she can’t believe she loves such a dork, and once again Clarke finds herself feeling out of place, like she’s intruding a private moment. But Costia soon turns back to her, “Clarke, you must come to our engagement party!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Clarke almost chokes as she answers, because that’s definitely not something she wants to do. They might have been best friends when they were kids, but that’s too far in the past for her to just burst into their engagement party like that.

But the idea seems to have grown roots in Costia’s mind already. “Come on, your mom is coming. So is Marcus-” she bites her lips and tilts her head, like she’s afraid she said too much, “You know Marcus, right?”

“Yeah, I met him yesterday,” Clarke brushes off, knowing Costia meant it as a question about whether or not she knows that her mother has a boyfriend. He seems to make her mother happy for the little she talked about him and how much she smiled just because he was standing in front of her, so that’s good enough for Clarke.

“Great! It’s settled then,” Costia bounces in place, taking that as enough answer for her to jump into details, “It’s in two weeks, but what about I drop by your house with your invitation and we catch up a bit? I’ll bring homemade cookies!”

“How can I say no, then?” Clarke shrugs, really _trying_ to think of a way to say no. It seems like too big of an event for Clarke, a virtual stranger by any sane person’s standards, to simply crash it. Besides, Lexa doesn’t look all that happy with the idea.

Maybe she would find a way to politely decline it by the time Costia comes to visit. With homemade cookies. Because of course.

 


	2. good ol' comfort food

Her tortoise shell glasses stays perched precariously on the bridge of her nose as Lexa scans the budget report for the upcoming tax year, knowing she’ll have a headache by the time she’s done with the sheriff’s department report.

Because if Sheriff Jaha thinks for even for a moment that they have enough money to buy him a new computer, he  _ clearly _ hasn’t been doing his job. Even Lexa knows they need to use that money to try and patch up the holding cells before they have another incident like the one with Jasper. He’s a good kid, Lexa knows that, but he gets a little too rowdy after a few beers and a little too angry when he’s put in a cell to cool off, which resulted in him pulling the bars from the concrete wall and running around the town square without his pants on. 

The crime rate in Polis is close to nonexistent, but they need to fix the wall and make sure the bars aren’t loose enough for someone drunk as a skunk to pull off. And they need to do that before -Lexa scoffs- they buy new paper towel dispensers for bathroom. 

She knows that keeping her brows knitted together with this much tension in them and her lips pressed tight in a thin line isn’t good for her, but she can’t help it.

Being the deputy city manager is hardly an exciting job - Lexa gets to spend her days buried under paperwork, watching as the heads of the town’s various departments make fools of themselves with their budget requests and cleaning after their mess. It really doesn’t get more engaging than making sure every program and event is recorded and reported, with all the proper permits issued and guidelines followed, and serving as a staff member in the occasional board or committee. 

It really isn’t a wild job that gets her heart pumping, but Lexa really cares about the people in this town.

She wasn’t born here and didn’t really move to Polis until after she was done with law school, but she’s spent her teen years running up and down these streets, watching the festivals lighting up with her arm wrapped around Costia’s waist, wishing one day she could be a part of it all. 

And now she is.

Now she gets to help the flower shop stay afloat after a bad year and make sure the diner’s owner gets a fair price for their products that come out of town, she can walk around knowing the children have a beautiful playground to play in, that the hospital is never lacking on staff members, that this down is a little better because of her. She gets to protect the people that made her feel at home and that means the station is getting a new cell and not an upgrade on its hardware when everything is still done with pen and paper.

She’s about to get on the phone and have a few words with Jaha when there’s a knock on the half opened door.

With a frown still firmly placed on her face, hard enough to make her forehead wrinkle, Lexa looks up. All the tension on her face gives way to a soft smile when she sees the face peeking through, “Hey, Cos. Come in.”

Costia smiles brightly as she walks in, her hair tugged back in a ponytail, her jeans smudged with flour. “Hey, babe,” her voice is as warm as her skin as she leans in to press a quick kiss to Lexa’s lips, “I brought you some lunch.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Lexa says as she takes the paper bag Costia sets in front of her along with a to-go cup of coffee, looking at her fiancée with guilt wrapped around her chest, “I thought I said I’d come by the bakery today.”

Grabbing a pen and a sticky note, Costia jolts down “ _ lunch hour, brb _ ” with a swift calligraphy-like handwriting, walks to the door and glues the note to it before shutting it closed as she talks, “You did, but it’s two in the afternoon already, you have to eat. If I waited for you to realize it’s time for lunch, you’d be eating dinner only.” Costia sits down on the chair in front of Lexa’s desk, making herself at home in the office. “Go on, eat. I’ll wait to make sure you eat it all and don’t get distracted by work.

There’s not a trace of hurt or accusation in her tone, she was genuinely worried about Lexa missing a meal. That has happened before, because Lexa can get too focused on her work to remember that her body needs fuel, but never since she got back together with Costia.

Lexa makes room on her desk, piling one report on top of another until she has a clear space in front of her, and takes the styrofoam container from the paper bag. “You made me biscuits?” Lexa takes a bite from the biscuits and fried chicken, knowing those are fresh out of the oven, and looks at Costia fondly, “What would I do without you?”

“One thing is for sure, your wedding dress would be wearing you,” Costia teases, leaning back on her chair and still managing to keep her back straight instead of slouching.

Lexa smiles because  _ they’re getting married _ . She had been the one to get down on one knee and propose, but sometimes it still doesn’t feel real. “We should start looking for wedding dresses soon,” Lexa sips at her coffee, wondering how dead she’ll be if she shows up with a suit without telling Costia, “It’s a shame we can’t go together.”

“It’s bad luck!” Costia almost yells, like Lexa has honestly been trying to convince her to go together, “We’ll do it after the engagement party. A week and a half to go and I don’t think I can be any more stressed.”

“Wait until we’re a week from our wedding,” Lexa teases, knowing Costia will be a mess way before that.

“It’ll all be worth it. I can’t wait to call you my wife,” Costia takes a sip from her coffee and Lexa sighs because, honestly, she can’t wait either. They’re supposed to wait a whole year to have enough time to plan everything out, but Lexa wants to wake up beside Costia everyday  _ way _ before that. “Speaking of the engagement party, I- did you get upset when I asked Clarke to come?”

Biting her tongue, Lexa considers saying it’s fine, that she doesn’t mind, that they’re inviting the whole town already, one person won’t make any difference. But she looks up and one look from Costia tells her she won’t accept anything but the truth. “No, not upset. It’s just-” Lexa sighs, ”I don’t know the woman, that’s all.”

“Oh, it’s great that you brought that up,” Costia chirps up and it almost makes Lexa reconsider lying through her teeth, “Because I went to visit Clarke on Saturday, right? And she feels the same way. She thinks she’ll be imposing her presence if she comes when half the couple doesn’t know her.”

Lexa takes another bite from her biscuit, suddenly realizing how hungry she is - or how eager she is to avoid this conversation. “Good way of putting it.”

“So,” Costia drags out the vowel, all but batting her eyelashes at Lexa, “I thought we could invite her over for dinner, so you get to know her. Then it won’t be awkward.”

Lexa groans, politeness be damned at the idea of sharing a whole evening with someone from Costia’s childhood that neither of them really know, “Do we have to?”

“It’s good manners,” Costia says, because of course she’d say just that - she sends handwritten thank you cards while Lexa can barely muster enough energy to call to thank, “You’ll love her, I promise you.”

“You can’t know that,” she takes another sip from her coffee, fighting to keep herself from darting her eyes down under the heavy scrutiny Costia puts her under, “I mean, you know the ten year old version of her. People can change a lot from who they were as kids.”

“Fair enough,” Costia seems to consider her options for a moment, “I’ll tell you this, we’ll invite her for dinner, you two will talk and become best of friends,” she laughs, like the idea is preposterous, and Lexa has to agree with that, ”But if you don’t. If you don’t like her, she won’t come to our engagement party and I’ll make sure you don’t even have to see her around.”

“A little hard considering this town has two streets, but okay,” Lexa sighs, ditching her lunch and focusing on her coffee as she watches Costia making her way towards her side of the desk, “Invite her over. I’ll help you cook.”

“How does your place, tonight at seven sounds?” Costia asks as she presses a kiss to Lexa’s cheek. She doesn’t even bother answering because, honestly, who can say ‘ _ no _ ’ to a smile as bright as hers?

Costia has to run back to the bakery she runs with her mom and Lexa is left with budget requests to review and the aching feeling that this dinner won’t go as well as Costia hopes. But the warmth and laughter that Costia leaves behind is enough to make Lexa put her worries aside

The city hall closes at four-thirty in the afternoon, but it’s well after five when Lexa closes the front door behind her and bids the security guards goodbye. She has a knot in her neck that has been bothering her ever since she got on the phone with Jaha - the man is unrelenting on his need of a new computer and Lexa might use his bones to fix the cell - and can’t help but think how much she’d rather watch a movie cuddled with Costia than host a dinner for someone she probably won’t even like.

Lexa feels almost silly as she drives her truck to the bakery - it’s a solid half block away from the city hall and she doesn’t understand why Costia can’t walk the distance and meet her there. But the reason becomes clear the moment she spots Costia in the bakery, waiting for her beside a little mountain of grocery bags.

“Did you think I don’t have  _ any  _ food at home?” Lexa says in lieu of a hello, teasing her as she struggles to grab half of them in one go.

“Well, you don’t,” Costia singsongs back at her, pointing to the rest of the bags lying on the bakery floor, “Now help me put these in the back.”

Lexa does as she’s told, hoisting the bags up and almost falling back with how heavy they were, struggling to bring everything to the sidewalk, “What are we cooking?” 

Instead of putting all the bags in the back in one go, Lexa splits her bags into three so it’s more manageable and tries not to look hurt when Costia swings her half like it doesn’t weigh a ton. “Biscuits with tomato jam, braised briskets with veggies, grits and salad.”

Pressing the tailgate shut, Lexa turns to Costia with an amused expression, the corner of her lips turning up as she asks, “How many people are we feeding again?”

Lexa’s house is a fifteen minute drive from town, a little patch of land stuck between two farms. The house has a hint of Antebellum architecture with a lawn big enough for a garden that Costia is bound to want when she moves in and a little playground for their children. It’s just big enough for it to be worth its price, but the distance from the town is what made Lexa be confident about buying it in the first place.

Nothing quite matches the peace she finds when she sits on the porch swing with a good book in her hands and the cricket sounds filling the air.

Costia turns the radio on and settles for some country music station that she loves as Lexa leans back and drives one handed down the winding gravel roads, feeling the chilly late afternoon air calming her down. They talk about their day, catching each other up - Lexa complains about Jaha while Costia promises to slip some laxative into his coffee next time he’s at the bakery before telling her about what a customer or another told her today. 

The drive is light and easy, it’s familiar in its long stretch of silence that neither feels the need to fill. By the time they get home and unload the groceries onto the kitchen island that seems a little too small for all they brought, Lexa feels the exhaustion of the day leaving her body and she leans in to kiss Costia, to share this moment of absolute bliss that she often gets when she’s near her fiancée.

But the night hasn’t even begun yet and Costia shoos her out of the kitchen because  _ “Clarke will be here soon and the brisket is nowhere near ready _ ,” which Lexa knows is a blatant lie - Costia had drove here earlier in the afternoon to leave it in the slow cooker so it’d be ready by seven. 

So Lexa does as she’s told and showers, puts on some jeans and a button down flannel over her tank top, braids her hair in a design a little too intricate for a casual dinner, even puts on some makeup - she’s trying, because she knows how important this is to Costia.

She goes back downstairs to help with dinner, knowing by the smell alone that there’s really not that much left for her to do. The brisket is about to be plated, the biscuits smell divine and she thinks she can smell bacon that will probably go with in the salad. Lexa rolls her sleeves up as she walks into the kitchen, “What can I do?”

“The grits,” Costia points to the broth, heavy cream and cornmeal sitting on the counter as she starts working on the tomato jam, “Okay, here’s what you need to know about Clarke.”

Lexa forces herself not to groan and starts measuring the ingredients before pouring them into a heavy bottomed pot, “Isn’t getting to know her the whole point of this dinner? Why do I need prep?”

“Because you need conversation starters,” Costia finishes peeling her tomatoes and brings her own pot to the stove, bumping hips with Lexa, who does her best to focus on whisking in the cornmeal.

“You’ll provide those.”

“I’m not listening to you. Keep an eye on the jam?” Costia asks as she hands the wooden spoon to Lexa, turning to finish plating the biscuits. “She’s a doctor, a baby doctor so you gotta be friendly with her because she might deliver your babies someday.” 

The idea of having a family with Costia is enough to make Lexa warm up to the idea of befriending the doctor. She can almost imagine nights like this with two boys wreaking havoc as they run around the house before running out to the backyard where they’d play until one of them pulled their sons inside for showers and dinner, maybe having to force them to finish their homework before their bedtime.

If awkward dinner and mindless chit chat is what it takes for them to have this, Lexa is more than ready to oblige.

Her daydreaming distracts her as she mashes the tomatoes into a paste, hoping they will indeed turn  _ jammy _ as they’re supposed to be, but Costia keeps going with her Fun Clarke Facts, “She likes to party a lot, she’s taking the quieter days in here to read a lot and settle, she’s single and I’m guessing ready to mingle-” Costia pauses, turning to Lexa pointing a butter knife threateningly at her, “You’ll be nice to her and ask about one of these topics. Deal? At least three questions before you put on a face.”

Lexa sighs, dramatically, but hums in agreement. “Why do I say yes to things like this?” Lexa asks, her eyes almost bulging from their sockets as she remembers she’s supposed to whisk the grits, that are just starting to burn.

Costia turns to her and wrinkles her nose at the way she’s handling the stove. She taps at Lexa’s hips, her gesture for “ _ get out of my way and go finish the salad _ ”, and lowers the heat on both pots, “Because you love me?”

Lexa is not that bad at cooking, she can handle herself in the kitchen just fine, but she needs to do one thing at a time while Costia has this amazing ability to tend to six pots at once and still manage to whip out a mean salad. “Ah, yes. That,” her tone is dry as she turns to work on the collard greens, but Costia laughs at her nonetheless.

The doorbell rings and Lexa lifts her eyes to the wall clock - it’s fifteen past seven and Clarke is not off to a good start. 

“Go get the door,” Costia tells her, because of course. Lexa is about to straight up while about how she should be the one to get the door, when she sees Costia working on both pots at once and checking the brisket in the slow cooker, “I’ll finish here.”

Lexa doesn’t need to be told twice because she can go get the door and be polite, but she cannot work as fast as Costia to save what could have been a ruined dinner. She sets her dish towel on Costia’s shoulder and makes her way to the front door, squaring her shoulders as she makes a mental note  _ not _ to mention her being late.

Plastering the politician smile she had picked up with Costia’s dad on, something that came in handy more often than she’d have guessed, Lexa swings the front door open. She finds Clarke shifting awkwardly from foot to foot in her front porch, standing out like a sore thumb against the nature behind her.

It’s still light enough for Lexa to make out the trees that begin right when her lawn ends, the old rusty seeder that has been in the same spot since before she moved in, the mud that seems to be constantly stuck to her truck no matter how often she washes it. And then there’s Clarke, looking straight out of a board meeting with heels a little too high and a little too thin to be walking around the dirt after the rain they had, black skirt and matching black tailored suit jacket, with a blouse underneath it that looked like could easily cost more than Lexa’s entire outfit, engagement ring included. 

The only thing that looked like it could belong was the pearl necklace Lexa was almost sure she had borrowed from Abby and her blue eyes sparkling under her long lashes.

“Clarke,” she says with a nod, in a polite hello, as she steps aside for her guest to come in, “Come in.”

Clarke gives her an apologetic smile as she hastily cleans her heels on the welcome mat and walks in, “Hey, sorry I’m late. I took a turn I shouldn’t have and couldn’t find my way back- why do they even make roads that narrow?”

Lexa nods, frowning slightly as she tries to place where the hell Clarke could have gotten lost. It’s a pretty straight forward way to get to Lexa’s place - drive on the main road going west outside town to the windmill and follow the white picket fence until the gate, the instructions couldn’t have been more clear. But there’s one turn- Lexa has to bite her tongue to keep herself from laughing because that is a hard road to deal with even for the most seasoned farmer.

“Anyway, hi,” Clarke says, pushing her curls away from her face with a practiced gesture, “Thanks for having me. I brought some wine. I didn’t know what we’re having, so I brought a Merlot.”

Taking the bottle Clarke offers her, Lexa gives her a tight lipped smile, “Merlot will do fine. Thank you.” Lexa starts making her way to the kitchen, knowing fully well Costia would much rather that they stayed in the living room and made mindless chit chat - which she  _ could _ do, but Costia was the one who put her up for this, she shall suffer along, “We’re having brisket, so it’ll go together well. Did you come alone? Because Costia is cooking enough food to feed half the town.”

“I heard that!” Costia shouts from the kitchen right before they step into it, looking threateningly at Lexa as she brandishes a bread knife at her.

Lexa chuckles, “I know you did.” 

Busying herself with finding the corkscrew that seems to have vanished from all drawers, Lexa half listens to Costia and Clarke give each other a much warmer hello than the one Lexa and Clarke exchanged. They hug and exchange pleasantries -  _ “You look absolutely breathtaking!” “I didn’t know how formal this dinner would be” “Well, definitely less formal than this” _ \- in the time it takes for Lexa to gather the glasses and finally find the damn corkscrew. What the hell was it doing with the pot lids?

“Oh, it smells amazing in here,” Clarke says as she takes a place near the kitchen island, shrugging her jacket off and hanging it on her stool, “I don’t know what it is about food here in the south that just smells incredible and tastes even better.”

“My mom says it’s because it’s done with pride and love. My pop says it’s all the bacon,” Costia says absentmindedly as she finishes organizing the biscuits and the tomato jam in a platter, “I have to side with my dad.

“I should visit your parents some time, they used to look after me so much when we were little,” Clarke says with fondness in her tone and Lexa makes a mental note to ask Costia about her childhood. They have talked about it, sure, and she did mention her  _ best friend _ , but now Lexa has a face to put to the stories, “How are they?”

“Oh, they’re good!” Lexa hands them both their wine, taking a sip of her own before she turns to finish putting the salad together - Costia doesn’t really trust her for much more than that, “Mom and I run the bakery on main street, where you must stop by. Our breakfast is to die for.”

“I’m not really of a morning eater, but I’ll stop by tomorrow for black coffee if you have any,” Clarke says and Lexa smiles to herself as she tosses the cooked collard greens into a bowl and stirs in the lime juice, sprinkling the bacon on top of it. Passing up on Costia’s breakfast is almost as bad as cursing in front of her grandma.

“That’s just sad, but alright. We’ll take that nasty habit out of you in no time,” Costia says with a stern tone and Lexa has no doubt that Clarke will be eating the pecan french toast and cheesy grits casserole stravaganza in less than two months. Lexa turns to put the salad bowl on the kitchen island and Costia tugs at her shirt, “And dad is mayor now! He’s guiding this one up the ladder.”

Clarke turns to her and Lexa can’t help the little swish her stomach does when she meets her eyes - some people just have that really intense kind of stare, “Really? You’re in politics?”

“I’m in the background for now, I work campaigns and all that,” Lexa says, slipping into her future-politician persona. It’s easier to talk about work with a stranger when she keeps that distance tone she has down to an art by now, “I’ve been in the city council before I started working alongside Costia’s dad. But I hope to run for mayor next election.”

“Is that how you met?” Clarke blinks at her before turning to Costia, who’s adding the final touches to the brisket, adding the veggies on the side, “Through your dad?”

“Oh no, we go way back,” Costia says like it’s not a big deal, too busy giving the grits and salad bowls to Clarke and shoving the biscuits plate to Lexa as she picks up the brisket, “Come on, help me take this to the dining room. Lex can tell you while we eat.”

Yes, sure. Lexa will tell their story. To a complete stranger.

She sighs. It’s going to be a long night.

The three of them carry their fair share of dishes to the dining room and Lexa arranges them all in a way she knows her fiancée likes while Costia finishes straightening up cutlery or adjusting the distance of a glass - she takes her dinner parties very serious, no matter if she’s catering for three or a thousand. 

When Clarke comes back from her trip to the kitchen to get the wine and the glasses - Lexa can’t help but admire the way Clarke brings all three glasses, still half filled, by their stems without dropping any wine - Lexa has a faint hope that they’ll carry on with the conversation and she won’t be the one to share how she met Costia and fell in love almost instantly.

Because it feels  _ wrong _ .

It feels like it’ll somehow taint their relationship, like letting Clarke in on their history is something they won’t be able to come out alive from. Which nears on ridiculous, because she has told this same story a thousand times, for anyone willing to listen.

Maybe - and that’s a far, distant  _ maybe _ , with capital M even - Lexa feels like that because of the way she welcomed Clarke into town. It’s silly, really, because she has been nothing but polite and cordial to Clarke, there’s nothing more to it.

Lexa prides herself in saying she was raised to help anyone in need, and Clarke was definitely in need when Lexa found her willing to talk three miles in high heels. Clarke was in need and Lexa helped her, offered her a ride, made small talk, drove her to where she was supposed to be. And if she noticed the way Clarke’s gaze lingered in her arms when she got her luggage and flexed a little bit harder just then, well-

She feels guilty. She feels guilty because it felt  _ good _ to have someone looking at her like that again. It’s not that Costia didn’t make her feel like a million bucks every day, but the novelty of those blue eyes shining darker when Lexa cracked a sly joke made butterflies come back from the dead in her stomach and flutter like the first time she asked Costia on a date. 

And that’s nothing short of dangerous. But it would’ve been  _ fine _ if Clarke didn’t turn out to be Costia’s childhood friend who she insists in befriending again. Lexa could have stored that moment away like a fleeting feeling, an innocent flirting to make a stranger a little more comfortable with riding her truck.

But now Clarke is sitting in front of her, waiting for Lexa to pass the collard greens and bacon, and she can feel a particular brand of shame filling her lungs instead of air.

“So,” Clarke starts as she piles collard greens beside the small mountain of grits she got on her plate, “How  _ did _ you two meet? I’m still waiting for the love story.” 

Lexa can swear her eyes darken ever so slightly when she says that.

Costia chuckles against Lexa’s shoulder, pressing a kiss on her cheek as she scoops some more veggies to the side of Lexa’s plate, “Go on. Tell her how we were always meant to be.”

The words sting her throat like a hundred needles prickling her at once.

Lexa takes a deep breath in and smiles at Costia. She loves that woman, loves every freckle in her warm brown skin, every flaw and every strength of her, even the way she sings completely out of tune in the shower. So she tells the story.

Between tiny bites and a few sips of wine, Lexa tells Costia how they met when they were sixteen and Lexa came over to Polis to play football against the town’s high school team. She was the quarterback and Costia was a cheerleader, but Lexa could swear she saw the girl smile after every touchdown she scored, no matter how wild her thumbs down routine was. 

There was a party that wasn’t supposed to be happening and alcohol flowing freely, and everything was so  _ easy _ . They talked, they drank, they snuck out back and kissed under the starry night that can only be found in the south.

After that, Lexa got her driver’s license as soon as possible and would drive her dad’s old truck over every weekend - for parties, for football matches, any excuse in the book to spend some time with her girlfriend. Their lives got intertwined before they even knew what they were doing - Lexa would garden with Costia’s mom on Sunday mornings after church and Costia would bake the most amazing pies for Lexa to take back home.

High school ended and Lexa moved away for college, because she’s always dreamed of living in a big city with constant noise and anonymous neighbors, Costia stayed to work with her mom at their bakery, because that’s all she has ever wanted to do. That’s when they broke up, through tears and kisses -  _ “Just in case, Lex. Just in case you find someone better” “I won’t. I want you”  _ \- and in the summers, they missed each other’s touch. 

Working with Costia’s dad in politics gave Lexa an excuse to see Costia more often and a purpose in life, so she majored in politics, decided to apply to law school once she got some work experience, moved back home and worked on the election campaign, figured out what she wanted in life.

And all her plans included Costia.

They got back together, because it was easy and familiar, because nothing else made sense. They made it through all three years of law school with long distance calls and constant texting that got Lexa in trouble more than once. When all that hell was done, Lexa realized she was made for a quiet life after all and moved back once again, knowing she’d never spend another day away from Costia.

By the time Lexa finishes telling the story, Costia has tears in her eyes - as she always does, almost like her love is too much for her to keep it all inside - and Clarke is smiling through the rim of her wine glass.

Lexa knows she loves Costia, knows she always will. But that story,  _ their  _ story, seems to cling uncomfortably around her heart, squeezing it until Lexa can’t be sure it’ll be able to keep beating.

“You two could have your own Lifetime movie,” Clarke says, pouring herself more wine, and Costia reaches out across the table to squeeze her hand.

Lexa pretends she doesn’t hear that and focuses on her still mostly untouched plate instead, suddenly realizing how hungry she is. She dives in, assuming she’s done her part for the evening and getting a mouthful of her veggies as Clarke says how delicious everything is - Lexa nods in agreement, although Costia always baffles her guests with how ridiculously good her food is.

When Clarke comments on what a big, beautiful house this is, Lexa almost chokes on a piece of biscuit trying to keep her laughter at bay. Because it doesn’t sound like someone who lived most of her live in a city like Chicago, it sounds dangerously similar to a child playing pretend.

Costia asks her about it, making it sound a lot more polite than Lexa could have managed, and Clarke sighs, sipping her wine, “I may or may not have gotten a lecture on how to act from Dr. Abigail Griffin.”

Costia looks at Lexa from the corner of her eyes with an amused smile - because Lexa had needed a similar lecture as well - and turns back to Clarke before Lexa can say or do anything other than roll her eyes. “Well, she did a very good job. You are a very polite young lady,” Costia says, a much thicker than usual drawl coming out, sounding dangerously similar to her grandma - a petit old lady, who gasps and clutches her pearls like the most stereotypical southern woman Lexa has ever seen.

Cleaning the corner of her lips with a napkin to keep herself from laughing, Lexa looks up at Clarke. She looks well entertained with her food - some people can cook, but Costia knows how turn food into a meal - and Lexa assumes she’s safe to make some conversation. Because Costia wants her to. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you move to Chicago in the first place? Costia didn’t mention it.”

Costia frowns at Lexa in the way she always does when she’s trying to remember something that seems to have slipped her mind, “I don’t know that, actually,” then she turns to Clarke, “You were here one day, gone the next.”

Whatever appetite Clarke had two minutes ago seem to have vanished into thin air and she grows quiet, very quiet. There’s a stillness to her that Lexa knows a little too well, would be able to recognize anywhere. Because  _ she _ has that stillness to her as well, whenever someone says something that hits too close and makes that part of her throb and ache as it shoots back to life.

Her smile fades and Lexa regrets ever asking it. Clarke plays with her collard greens, pushing it one way and another, her throat bobbing up and down. When she speaks again, her voice is barely even there. “My dad passed away.”

Costia leans over the table to clutch Clarke’s hand in between hers, squeezing it gently, rubbing her thumb on the back. “Oh, Clarke.”

“You remember, he used to be a stay at home dad?” Clarke says after a moment, her voice shaking as she keeps her eyes focused on their intertwined hands, “He was an engineer before that and when I was ten, he got a job overseeing a project that had a flaw in design. That’s what they called it.” She shrugs and looks up at the wall behind Costia, enough for Lexa to see the unshed tears turning her eyes a deeper blue. Clarke is quiet for a long time, but her breathing finds a calmer rhythm again.”I guess staying here was too hard for my mom, so we moved.”

“I’m really sorry, Clarke,” Lexa says, because she  _ is _ . Lexa groans at herself, at her barely disguised curiosity, at her urge to know more about this mysterious woman from Costia’s past - she has nothing to do with Clarke, has no right to ask things like this. “I didn’t mean to pry.” 

“It’s fine,” Clarke dismisses her in a blink, but then sighs and looks directly at her, blue eyes meeting green, “I mean, it’s  _ not _ , but it’ll have to be. I guess it’s hard for me too, being back. He’s everywhere I look, but I’ll have to get used to it.” Lexa fights the shiver that runs down her spine, the intense way Clarke holds her gaze knocking her breath out. Clarke composes herself again, squeezing Costia’s hand before putting a polite fake smile on. “Pass the grits? I forgot how good this is.”

“Lexa almost burned it,” Costia rats her out, clearly glad for some distraction as she passes the bowl around, grabbing the collard greens for herself.

It takes a moment for Lexa to find her bearings again - the way her stomach loops is not right, but she’s quick to store it away and bump her shoulder against Costia’s, “You’re not letting anything slide today, are you?”

They keep the conversation light after that, with Costia doing most of the talking - Clarke  _ does _ have almost twenty years of gossip to catch up on, and Lexa watches in amusement as her fiancée does her best to explain to Clarke who she’s talking about. Lexa tunes out after a little while, because she knows all the gossip already - although “that girl who used to throw rocks at boys got married and is expecting her second child” is far from juicy gossip - and she doesn’t feel like joining as they talk about their childhood.

It’s fun to listen to, it’s a new layer to add to her vision of both women, but Lexa doesn’t have anything to add. So she sits back and enjoys her wine, reaching out to hold Costia’s hand every now and again before she starts to talking with her hands again and Lexa needs to let her go.

Clarke talks excitedly about her own version of Costia’s stories, adding details or turning it around completely, and she brightens up more and more as their food leaves their plates, becomes less threatening and more like someone Lexa would probably enjoy spending time with.

Against her better judgement, Lexa watches her. And if she tells herself she’s doing this to gauge where Clarke stands- well, at least it’ll her sleep at night.

But instead, Lexa finds herself smiling into her wine when Clarke laughs about some embarrassing tale from Costia’s teenage years and throws her head back, laughing until she’s silent, only to snort and laugh even more. It’s a sight for sore eyes and Lexa can’t help the way her chest aches to be the one to make her laugh like that, no matter how much she fights it.

Costia reminisces about the time she misjudged how far she’d go as jumped from the river rope swing and ended up with a broken arm - “ _ and Clarke was the one wailing as if it had been  _ her _ arm _ ” “ _ I was scared you had died! _ ” - and only after that she deems that it’s time for all the dishes to go back to the kitchen and be replaced by dessert.

Lexa offers to go get it - anything to get some distance, to can clear her head - but Costia insists they both go wait in the living room so she can set up the table. Lexa tries to argue with her for less than a minute, knowing very well she wants to sneak outside and grab some flowers from the garden to add to the table, before leading Clarke to the living room.

The conversation is polite at best between them, but Lexa tries to walk that line between building a friendship and keeping her distance as she does her best to keep her promise to Costia and ask about her - Lexa has two questions to go before she’s off the hook with her fiancée.

“So, Clarke.” Lexa sits on the edge of the couch, keeping as much distance from Clarke as possible, her back so straight that she feels a pang in between her shoulder blades, and tries to come up with something to say. Work seems like the safest topic, since it is the reason Clarke came back at all, “How do you like working with your mom?”

“It’s-” Clarke sighs, leaning back against the cushions and taking a moment to think her answer through, “Okay, I guess. But I’ve been bored out of my  _ mind _ lately.”

Mindless chit chat? Lexa has it down to an art. “I assume it’s a far cry from what you work used to be back in Chicago.”

“Oh, yeah, you can say that,” Clarke chuckles, running her fingers through her hair before reaching for her while. Lexa folds her hands on her lap - it’s easy to be near Clarke, it’s almost comfortable and she can’t decide if it’s a good thing, “I used to have twenty-four-hour shift where I’d barely have time to eat and pee, let alone sleep. Now I’m at the clinic eight hours a day and I might do some actual work for two hours top.”

“It’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Lexa asks, hearing the kitchen door that opens to the backyard shutting closed - she was right, they’ll have wildflowers and peonies to go with their mud pie, “That people are in good health.”

“Sure, that would be great. But that’s not really what’s happening.” Letting out a tired sigh, Clarke straightens up and turns to face Lexa. There’s a pause before she goes on, as if she’s trying to make sure she doesn’t step out of line, “The thing is, people are sick but they don’t want to be seen by  _ me _ .”

“What? Why is that?” Lexa needs to fight the urge to kick off her shoes and curl her feet under her, lean against the cushions and listen to Clarke talk about her work. What is it with this woman that makes her feel this at ease?

“I’m not only the young new doctor at the clinic, which would’ve been bad enough. But they see me as the same little girl they saw running down the main street and no one thinks I’m qualified to treat the  _ stomach bug _ going around,” Clarke says in one breath and Lexa nods sympathetically. She knows what’s like not to be taken serious by the people around you. “I used to operate on newborn babies, but I sure have no clue of what I’m talking about when I tell people they just need to rest and drink fluids to flush it all out. No, I’m talking nonsense.”

Lexa presses her lips tight together to fight a smile, because Clarke doesn’t need to think she’s being mocked. But all this sarcasm has a pretty good bite to it and definitely not something Dr. Griffin would approve of. Clarke still sounds like a big city woman, no matter how much she tries to disguise it.

Sighing deeply, Clarke lets her body sag once she sets her wine on the coffee table and Lexa swears she  _ looks _ lighter after that little burst of anger. “Anyway. Now I mostly spend my days reading my way through the very limited library my mom has at home and doing Jackson’s crosswords. He sucks at it.”

It takes Lexa a moment to place who Jackson is - the nurse who buys blueberry muffins from the bakery every Thursday. Before answers it, Costia comes in and slips into the conversation with ease, “Why don’t you talk to Bellamy, our librarian? He knows the town’s library like the back of his hand, he can help you find good books. And it’s always nice to make friends.”

“Ugh, you sound like my mom,” Clarke groans, as if making friends is as fun as being tortured. “But I might have to, I won’t be sane for much longer if I don’t read something other than cheesy romance novels soon.”

“Drop by the bakery tomorrow late morning, I’ll go with you,” Costia suggests and Lexa knows she’ll have to split her fiancée’s attention with at least five books. But she brightens up so much when Clarke nods that Lexa can’t find it in herself to be upset. “Now come on, dessert awaits us.”

Costia reaches her hand out and Lexa takes it, letting her pull her to her feet with a swirl before they make their way to the dining room. There really is peonies sitting on a vase beside the mud pie, just off to the side to leave them enough room to talk without having to lean to the side. It’s something straight out of Martha Stewart’s website - Lexa doesn’t think she’ll ever get over how Costia can make everything look so nice with so little effort.

Clarke and Costia fall into an easy conversation about books that turns into an interview about Chicago - how was it back then, are the people really that different, does Clarke miss the city life - and Lexa lets herself enjoy the chocolatey dessert and the sound of laughter filling the room, occasionally adding her own experience with Chicago. People were nice but the cold had been unrelenting, she spent the whole time there wanting to come back to a place she wouldn’t need fifteen thermal layers just to stay alive.

It’s well over an hour, filled with second servings and tales about heat waves, before they walk Clarke to the door. It’s way later than either Lexa or Costia would care to stay awake, but it’s been a good evening, with good food, good conversation and good company. And in a town where they knew everyone, that was surprisingly difficult to find someone to have something like this on the regular.

“Is that your mom’s car?” Costia snickers as they stand on the porch and look at the car parked behind Lexa’s truck. 

It’s the closest thing someone could get to an SUV and get away with not being called a Soccer Mom - capital S, capital M. But Lexa assumes Abby needs to shuttle patients in need of more urgent care to the nearest hospital and that car is better than buying a whole ambulance out of her own pocket.

“It is,” Clarke groans as she looks at the car and fishes the keys out of her purse, “I need to get my own, because that thing is probably older than I am.”

“Hey,” Lexa finds herself exclaiming before she fully processes it, taking offense on Clarke’s comment as if it had been said about  _ her _ . “Old cars do have their charm.”

“Lexa has a truck that really  _ is _ older than we are,” Costia says in a stage whisper, leaning towards Clarke but glancing back, to make sure Lexa heard it and knows they’re talking about her.

Rolling her eyes, Lexa glances at her 80s Chevy, all faded colors and battered seats. “Shut up,” she says halfheartedly and makes a sour face when both women chuckle at her.

“Well, thank you for having me over. My mom will appreciate the leftovers. This was-” Clarke pauses halfway through her sentence as Costia envelops her in a tight hug, “-really nice. I forgot what it feels like to have a whole evening to enjoy without my phone going off.”

From what Clarke had said, even on her days off she’d have to go to the hospital and assist on a surgery or check on a patient. She’s bound to have some growing pains as she adjusts to the quiet of a small town clinic, but it seem to have its perks.

“It was really nice to have you. Get ready to do this really often,” Costia says with a playful wink and turns to Lexa, expectantly. They had agreed on Lexa being the one to invite Clarke to their engagement party if, and only if she got to know her fiancée’s childhood friend and liked her. Which she had. Maybe a little more than she should, definitely a lot more than Costia were expecting to.

“Clarke,” Lexa says, wrapping her arm around Costia’s waist, tugging her closer as she clears her throat, “Would you like to come to our engagement party?”

Looking at Lexa through her eyelashes in an almost bashful way, Clarke smiles and nods, “I would love to, Lexa.”

She waves them goodbye and closes the distance to her car, eyeing the darkness that seems to rest quiet just outside the reach of the light - the night is a lot darker this far out into the country roads and is  _ definitely _ a far cry from what Chicago looks like with all its city lights. It’ll take some getting used to, and Clarke will soon come to love it or hate it so much she’ll flee to the nearest metropolis.

Lexa watches the car braving the gravel road, its headlights carving a path through the night, and she’s so distracted by the night sounds that she almost jumps out of her skin when Costia tickles her belly, “So?”

Her voice is hopeful as she presses her palm to Lexa’s stomach, soothing the spot where she tickled her, and it’s clear in her bright brown eyes that she really,  _ really _ wants Lexa to get along with Clarke. Lexa sighs, running her hand up and down her fiancée’s side, and relents, “Clarke is... nice. She seems like a very fun person to be around.”

Costia squeals, nearly jumping up and down under Lexa’s embrace, “Say it, say it.”

Chuckling at how excited Costia is about something so small, Lexa turns her in her arms until they’re face to face, breathing the same air, and says the words she knows she has to. “You were right, Cos.” Lexa sighs dramatically, but Costia’s smile grows,“You’re happy?”

“Very,” Costia says right before pressing their lips together in a soft kiss, making Lexa smile into it.

As they go inside, hand in hand, hearts beating to the same rhythm, Lexa knows she won’t ever trade this for anything else. The butterflies that used to flutter in her stomach might be in the past, along with kisses in the back of her truck and sneaking out to buy beers on a Thursday night, but Costia is her best friend, is the only person she sees herself growing old with.

 


	3. hey pretty girl, can i have this dance?

Sitting on the closed toilet lid, Clarke stares at the ancient hair straightener, willing it to heat up before the next century.

When moving from a city as big as Chicago to somewhere with a single faulty traffic light, Clarke knew she’d have to say goodbye to some luxuries such as drive-thrus and more than three clothing stores to choose from.

And she had made her peace with it.

But she’d  _ kill _ to be able to walk into a salon and have her hair and makeup done in little more than half an hour. Of course, that would be asking too much of the one hairdresser this little town have who, apparently, is completely overbook with ‘such a big event’. Clarke had groaned into the receiver before hanging up - it’s an engagement party in someone’s backyard, not the royal wedding.

At least she’s got Wells to keep her company - to keep her from going completely insane.

“You’d love it in here,” Clarke tries again, prying her eyes from the still lukewarm hair straightener to look at her best friend, smiling cheekily at her from her phone screen. Facetime calls are as close as they get these days, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t try to remedy that, “Those corn fields we used to drive by when we visited your mom don’t hold a candle to what they have this down south. Everything here is either fields or forests, with rivers in between.”

Wells is truly the only friend she still has in Chicago, has been her best friend ever since she moved to his school as a chubby ten year old who couldn’t handle being teased by the older kids. He had stood up for her and grabbed her hand, stating that they would eat lunch together and anyone who had a problem with it could take it up with him. It had been the first time Clarke had felt safe after her dad died, and the feeling that came with being near Wells hadn’t gone away as the years went by.

She misses him. She says it often and in a melodramatic tone, hoping he’ll make good on his promises to come down to Polis just to see her. 

His laughter warms Clarke’s heart and she finds herself smiling with him, even if she knows some teasing is coming. “So…” he starts once he catches his breath, “You’re hating it.”

She lets her shoulders drop, sighing deeply. “I’m hating it,” she says plainly, because there’s no reason to lie, because Wells knows her that well. His laughter picks up again and Clarke gets up to check on her  _ mom’s _ hair straightener, deeming it hot enough to start working on her hair as Wells grabs his chest to calms down. “It’s not  _ all _ bad. At least I won’t have to worry about getting snowed in in the middle of April.”

Clarke tries to brag, but she knows she’ll miss all that Chicagoan snow once the summer really sets in and she’s sweating by the bucket. All the humidity that comes with the southern summer is more than Clarke’s hair can handle.

“Are we gonna talk about the weather? Because I can talk about the weather,” Wells bites as Clarke starts working on her hair, trying to work magic as she twists the straightener so it curls her hair, “It’s gonna be in the low 40s all of next week and I can’t take it anymore. There.”

She takes a look at her handiwork in the mirror before dignifying Wells with a glare. He’s itching to call her out on something, she knows him enough to know that much even through a five inch screen. Clarke tilts her head and sighs, “Okay, spill it.”

“You’re the one being weird,” he says after a beat, and Clarke just rolls her eyes and starts working on another section of her hair, “You’re going to the engagement party of your  _ former _ best friend-” Wells clears his throat very pointedly, as to remind her that  _ he _ is her very best friend, “-and the girl you have a crush on, and here you are, talking about the  _ weather _ .”

The hair straightener almost falls from her grip as she turns to him, “I’m not-” she pauses, collects herself, frowns at him, “I was just making conversation. And I don’t have a crush on her.”

“You do,” Wells insists, which makes Clarke regret very, very deeply getting drunk off of boxed wine and texting him all about his dinner with Costia and Lexa at two in the morning, sounding way sappier than she meant to, “The sooner you admit it to yourself, the sooner you can get over it.”

Clarke doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she keeps her eyes in the mirror, half straightening, half curling a good portion of her hair before considering looking at him again. If it’s because she doesn’t want him to see right through her lie, she pretends she just wants to get ready soon.

“Lexa is hot, I’ll give you  _ that _ ,” Clarke finally says, looking towards Wells to find him just looking up from his keyboard at the sound of her voice. She half groans and decides to bite the bullet, “She’s very attractive and exactly my type, but she’s also very much in love with someone else. If I had met her at a bar, she’s be an ex by now. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yep, pretty much,” he nods at her, wearing a very smug smile. There’s a beat where he seems to study Clarke, and then he adds, “Please don’t get drunk at the party and do something you’ll regret.”

“When have I ev-” Clarke starts, sounding very offended at the implication. But then she remembers everything she  _ did _ try to solve with getting wasted and doing something stupid, “Okay, yeah, I won’t. If you drop the Lexa subject.”

Wells laughs, but nods, and mumbles a “ _ sure, sure _ ” that he only halfway means before ducking down again. He’s typing away in his computer, his fingers pouring out lines upon lines of code that gives Clarke a headache whenever he tries to explain it to her. 

She’s fine with the silence; appreciates it, even. They used to share an apartment before Wells moved to Thailand for a while, and this - him working in his pajamas, lounging on the couch and eating chips, her getting ready for a night out or running around late for her shift - feels like  _ home _ . 

Clarke would kill to have her best friend beside her, guiding her through the ups and downs of southern life. Wells is a programmer who works remotely most of the time, and he’s been more excited about the countryside and all the little quirks a small town can have than she could ever muster.  _ Technically _ , there’s no reason why he couldn’t move down south for a whole year and then move back to Chicago with her.

Thinking like that would be selfish of her, but Wells lights up at the mere mention of  _ ducks _ . He’d fit like a glove in here.

Clarke is putting on hairspray to make sure the curls she worked so hard on stay in place until evening falls when Wells clears his throat, “Are you making any friends? Besides your childhood one and the one who shall not be mentioned.”

“Cheeky,” Clarke rolls her eyes as she grabs her makeup pouch. Wells tries to keep his voice light and upbeat, but she knows she’s worried about her. “And yeah, I guess. I mean I talk to Jackson a lot because boy, do I have free time. And the nutritionist that comes by a few times a week too,” Clarke tries to hide the bitterness from her tone. She’s met some nice people, because southern warmth is no joke, but she misses being a fucking doctor, “I met this mechanic a few days ago, Raven. She’s always at the clinic and said she can hook me up with a nice car.”

Wells lights up at that, pushing his laptop away and stretching his arms over his head. Clarke barely sees it before she turns to the mirror and starts applying her makeup, but hears the smile in his voice as he says, “Good, that’s good. You have no chance of hooking up with anyone if you keep driving your mom’s car.”

Clarke snorts at that, spilling half her brozen into the sink. She steps back to look at him, to make sure he sees her eyes rolling to the back of her head, “Yeah, because there’s a sea of eligible singles in this  _ village _ .”

“Come on,” Wells teases, sounding like a schoolgirl wanting to know the latest gossip, “Haven’t you found any cowboy to take you out to a nice dinner?” he says the last couple words with a ridiculous southern accent, and Clarke can’t choose between laughing or telling him there are virtually no cowboys this far east.

Instead, she goes back to her makeup. “What’s this obsession with my love life? You’re the one living in the big city, you tell me about all the hotties you’ve been kissing.”

“You know I’ve always lived vicariously through you, babe,” Wells says with a click of his tongue. It’s true. Less than two months ago, Clarke was sitting on his couch, nursing a nasty hangover and telling him about how her latest one night stand became seeing each other every day until she found out the dude had a girlfriend. She’s so lost in thought that Wells question knocks the breath from her lungs, “How’s work? It’s been almost three weeks.”

She sighs, a month’s worth of exhaustion weighing heavy on her shoulders. She’s been refusing to talk about it, either with Wells or her mom, and even Costia when she asks oh so gently about how things are. “I spent the whole week trying to see patients, but they kept demanding to see  _ the real _ doctor Griffin instead of a child. Everyone here is old and set in their ways. I don’t think I’ll ever get through to them.”

Clarke is tired. 

But it’s not the kind of tired she’d get after a thirty six hour shift, or a surgery that lasted so long she couldn’t decide between the shower she desperately needed, eating before she passed out or sleeping for twelve hours. It’s not the kind of tired sleep can fix.

“You’ll be fine,” Wells starts, but she knows he doesn’t fully believe it. They’re supposed to have their life together by now, and  _ he _ has, but Clarke’s fall was worse than she could have braced herself for. “Maybe your mom can talk to them-”

“No,” Clarke cuts him, turning to glare at him with her eyeliner half done, the brush hanging in the air, “She’s doing too much already as it is, letting me get some clinic hours. I won’t ask for her to beg patients to let me see them.”

“Clarke,” Wells drags out the silence after her name and she turns back to finish applying her makeup. She can feel a lecture coming and she’s not in the mood for it, “It’s not  _ clinic hours _ , that shit stayed in Chicago. That’s family medicine, baby, and you gotta treat the whole family. Talk to them in the waiting room, serve them coffee, convince one or another to let you take their blood pressure.” Clarke makes a face as she caps her eyeliner, grabbing the powder to finish her whole look. “Earn their trust. Chase them down the damn street, if you need to.”

He’s right. Clarke  _ knows _ he’s right. But that doesn’t make it any less hard to swallow.

“I miss the OR,” she whispers a few minutes later, once she’s all ready to go with her makeup products mostly put away, “I miss only having to read a chart before cutting someone open and putting my hands right into the problem so I could fix it.”

Wells chuckles, “That’s exactly what they’re going to beat out of you.”

“Comforting. I’m so glad you called, thank you,” Clarke deadpans and Wells laughter grows so much she can’t help her own smile. Her mom calls her from downstairs, asking if she’s ready, and Clarke groans. “I have to go. Wish me luck.”

“And oh boy, are you gonna need it.”

Before she even makes to the stairs, Clarke lets out a tiny groan. It doesn’t take more than one look at her mom’s outfit to know she’s painfully overdressed.

Her tulle maxi skirt and silk cami is something she’s wear for a Saturday brunch back in Chicago, definitely nothing fancier than an afternoon wine date with a few friends. But Abby is wearing jeans with a button down shirt, her modest heels being the only indication she’s going to a party at all.

It’s a great start.

Clarke doesn’t want to go, truth be told. She doesn’t know anyone besides the brides and her mother, hasn’t lived in town in twenty years, most likely doesn’t share many interests with the people attending - she’ll make a fantastic guest. 

But Costia has been insistent, coming up with reasonable solutions to every one of Clarke’s complaints, and after having her over for dinner just so she didn’t feel uncomfortable near Lexa because they didn’t know each other very well, Clarke doesn’t feel like she’s even allowed to decline.

One look from her mother that goes from her heels that now seem too high for a backyard engagement party to the curls she barely managed to do tells Clarke enough. They don’t really have time for her to change - not that she has anything that would be appropriate, now that she really thinks about it - so Clarke just raises her eyebrows to Abby, daring her to say anything.

Her mother means well, she knows that. She wants Clarke to fit in, to make friends, to feel at home in this town that has less people living in it than how many patients would be at the hospital she used to work at in the morning alone.

But Clarke doesn’t want to fit in, she wants to  _ leave _ .

Sure, the town has its quirks and, aside from her would-be-patients in the clinic, everyone is warm and kind, stopping her for everyday conversations she’s only barely getting the hang of. But she misses the buzzing from Chicago, the anonymity, the life that got away from her.

When her mom grabs their keys and walk out the door, Clarke follows, slumps down in the passenger seat and watches the scenery pass them by as they drive to Lexa’s house, neither bothering to fill the silence and leaving that job to the radio blasting country songs that makes Clarke’s skin crawl more often than not.

There’s more than one reason why she wants to go back to Chicago, to a place where she didn’t have the time to overthink herself into a near mental breakdown and patients didn’t care hold old she is - like she’s a fifteen year old genius who’s going to do open heart surgery using butterknife; she’s a goddamn licensed physician, damn it.

It’s frustrating that so many people blatantly refuse to see her and would rather sit in a waiting room for hours on end. And she knows Abby means well when she tries to give her advice, but telling Clarke she needs to be less of herself isn’t helpful.

Honestly, Abby and Wells are two peas in a fucking pod when it comes to telling Clarke she needs to let go of everything she’s grown up to be if she wants to be a doctor in a small town like this.

Right before Clarke drowns in self pity, they drive down the gravel road that leads to Lexa’s house, the way the car jolts against the potholes and bumps Abby can’t avoid taking Clarke out of her own head.

It’s almost condescending the way surprises wrap itself around Clarke at how beautiful the backyard is.

Clarke hasn’t gone to many engagement parties - the long hours and taxing shifts leaving little time for anyone to find relationships, let alone make them last long enough for both parties to even want to get married - but this is different from everything she’s seen.

The backyard seems to go on for miles - and it might just, Clarke muses - with every inch bringing a warmth to her chest that she absolutely refuses to feel. What she wants or doesn’t want to feel doesn’t matter as she watches kids running around a long table with mismatched chairs and placemats that are beautiful in its simplicity. There’s a garland running across the center and fairy lights hanging above it, but there’s no seating chart.

Clarke looks around, taking in the chalkboard signs that map the way.

There’s a  _ welcome _ one, with Costia and Lexa’s name written out in beautiful calligraphy, right by the low table where the presents are supposed to go. There’s a food station in a corner, near the kitchen door that opens to the backyard, and a drink station a little ways down - both decorated in bright, warm colors, both with a little menu written in a chalkboard with gorgeous frames that don’t quite match, but compliment each other. The string light hover above it all, just in case the party goes well into the evening, and is the chalkboard that says there are lawn games happening in the far back, it probably will.

Clarke follows her mom to where Marcus is waving them over, pausing by the welcome corner to drop their gifts. After googling at least seven different times for tips on what gift to give someone you used to be friends with when they enjoyed wooden toy sailboats and baking mud cakes, Clarke settled for a bamboo salad set. Wells made fun of her for thinking that was actually a nice present, but Clarke was too pissed to do much more than tell him to go fuck himself and please, buy and mail it to her - because Amazon doesn’t know Polis exists yet.

Her mom seems happy near Marcus, for what it’s worth. Clarke watches the way Abby leans in ever so slightly when he hugs her waist and presses a kiss to her temple, laughing into his chest as he tells them about one thing or another that happened at school that week. 

Clarke finds that she actually enjoys talking to him, mostly because he knows how to keep a conversation going and always has dirt on the teenagers - she can’t believe this is her life now. But Marcus is okay, he makes her mom happy and that’s more than Clarke can say for herself.

When he asks Abby if she wants to dance, he does it in an over the top way, tipping forward in a bow so deep Clarke is half afraid he’ll lose balance. But seeing her mom throwing her head back in laughter and doing a curtsy, smiling so wide her laughter lines is everything she sees, Clarke thinks there are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.

As they walk towards the makeshift dance floor, hands linked and matching smiles on their faces, Clarke pulls out her phone. No one seems to be getting their drinks yet - which Clarke thinks is outrageous, to say the least - so she decides to wait a little while, taking some pictures to send to Wells to kill time. Clarke would like nothing more than be enjoying a crisp sauvignon blanc in one of her favorite wine bars, where she wouldn’t be feeling so out of her element.

Leisurely walking all the way to the side of the house as she sends Wells the pictures she took, Clarke gets on her tiptoes, tries to make the whole party fit in one last picture. She taps on it to take a look, zooming in on Abby and Kane laughing and the kids playing some hula hooping game in the back. Wells would adore all this - the country feel that comes with the songs and the wooden everything, the noise, the big family.

She’s about to send him this picture as well when she notices something in it. Clarke looks up from where she zoomed in on her picture and fights a smile, pocketing her phone again before walking towards the table with a stupid, giddy feeling bubbling in her chest.

“Hey,” Clarke greets as she comes within hearing range of Lexa, who’s currently leaning over a central piece, taking pictures with a fancy ass camera almost bigger than her face, “Shouldn’t you be welcoming people?” 

It’s more playful than mean, just a conversation starter, but Clarke feels self conscious when Lexa doesn’t look up right away. That alone, how she reacts to that simple thing, ennerves her more than anything - Clarke has always prided herself in being assertive and going after what she wants, in not letting anyone mess with her feelings unless she was in the mood for it.

But this - this is uncharted territory for her.

Lexa takes another moment with the camera, one eye closed, the other glued to the viewfinder as she adjusts the lenses before snapping a picture. “Well, most people got here already, and Costia is the one who actually enjoys doing that,” she says, straightening up as she clicks one button and another to check how the picture turned out, “I’m taking a break before I cannot take her great uncle telling me the story of how he helped my parents move for the thousandth time.” Lexa sighs, looking through the viewfinder again as she speaks, mostly to herself, “Every time he sees us.”

“Perks of joining the family, I guess.” Clarke switches from one foot to another, realizing Lexa has yet to look at her. She’s been getting better at the whole small talk thing, but that woman still has a way to get under her skin without she even realizing. Lexa takes another picture and repeats the process of checking it, and Clarke finds herself speaking up before she fully realizes it, “I didn’t know you were a photographer.”

“Yeah, well.” Lexa shrugs, running her thumb over the edge of the camera before looking up, meeting Clarke’s eyes for the first time. “It’s just a hobby, I guess. I stole this from Anya while she gets drinks.” Clarke has no idea who Anya is, but she’s growing used to be talked to as if she knows everyone in town, “Don’t tell Costia any of this.”

“My lips are sealed,” Clarke assures her and Lexa simply nods, once, before thumbing her way through the pictures, studying each one carefully before moving on to the next one. Clarke feels her curiosity taking the best of her and she takes a step closer, all but leaning over Lexa’s shoulder, “Can I see them?”

Holding Lexa’s gaze as she studies her, ponders if she trusts her enough to let her see her work, Clarke lets herself map the infinity of those green eyes, taking in every speck of gold, ever grassy green streak in the forest green. And suddenly, it clicks. Suddenly, Clarke realizes why she’s oh so utterly screwed.

She’s at ease with Lexa.

In a town where she’s constantly uncomfortable, that’s filled with people who are a far cry from everything she’s used to, Lexa is the one that makes her heart feel a bit quieter. 

There’s no reason for it, if she really thinks about it.

Maybe it’s because Lexa gave her a ride into town and welcomed her in a way she didn’t think she’d find. It must be it, because the woman has been barely polite with her ever since - wait, maybe it’s  _ because _ Lexa has been so standoffish that Clarke feels comfortable around her. It’s what she’s used to, where being slightly detached is just being someone with a sound mind.

Regardless of the reason, Clarke feels closer to home when she’s near Lexa.

They haven’t even talked much, but they’ll run into each other at the town square every so often, when Lexa is going back to the city hall and Clarke is going out for lunch. Some days they’ll stop to chat for a bit, mostly what they’re having for lunch since both of them eat at the bakery Costia runs, and some other days they’ll just wave each other hello. 

It’s not much. It’s just a gut feeling that tells Clarke that they click - which isn’t exactly the best thing to figure out at the moment, considering they’re at Lexa’s engagement party.

After a long moment, Lexa nods. 

“The last ten, maybe fifteen picture are mine,” Lexa says almost shyly and presses a few buttons until she lands in the gallery before handing it to Clarke, “Anya is photographing the engagement, so most pictures are hers.”

Humming with barely half her attention as she holds the camera, Clarke takes in the first photograph. It’s the one Lexa took only a few moments ago, right before Clarke walked up to her - the greenery from the centerpiece acts as a blurred frame of sorts, the only thing in focus a little girl twirling somewhere among the crowd, her dress going out around her, a laughter frozen in the picture.

Clarke blinks at Lexa, taking her eyes from the picture for a moment to ask, “And Anya is?”

“Oh!” Lexa jumps slightly beside her, almost like she’s  _ just _ remembering Clarke is a newcomer and doesn’t have the same extensive knowledge of who’s who in town just yet. “She’s one of my oldest friends. We went to high school together and she moved here a few years after I did,” Lexa says with the kind of fondness that only comes with a lifetime spent together, “Her work as a photograph is very delicate for someone who runs a bodybuilding gym.”

Clarke half snorts in laughter as she nods, making a mental note to look for someone with the fancy camera and probably more muscles in her arms than she has in her entire body. Lexa’s expression doesn’t really change, but the amused tone in her voice makes Clarke want to know more about her, about this Anya person, about who she used to be.

Instead, she focuses on the pictures in front of her. 

She flips through the first few pictures, a sense of wonder growing within her as they reveal details from the party she’d never notice - a twine string looped into a bow that ties the napkin around the silverware resting on the table, baby breath from the centerpiece standing sharp against a blurry background, the table itself spreading out into the distance in much warmer colors than the real thing.

It’s nothing she’s look twice to, but they have an ethereal quality to it, something that takes Clarke’s breath away, makes her feel like more than she is.

“You’re-” Clarke starts, but pauses. Words seem to fall short, because calling Lexa  _ talented _ doesn’t quite match what she wants to say. She doesn’t finish her thoughts, lets her voice die down instead as she goes through a few other photographs - all of them giving her the same sense of awe. She pauses when she finds one of Lexa and Costia, assuming that’s one of Anya’s, and looks up, “There are incredible, Lexa.”

Her sure voice seems to take Lexa aback.

“Thank you,” Lexa says, sincerely, casting her glance down like it had never occurred to her that she’s actually incredibly good at this hobby of hers, and Clarke looks back to the picture to hide her smile.

Anya doesn’t fall behind. Clarke turns back to the picture she was looking before and the way Lexa looks at Costia, who’s smiling sweetly at someone off camera, is soft and gentle, it’s the sort of look you find in couples that have been together for over half a century - it’s the kind of love all the love songs talk about. 

It takes her breath away for more reasons than one.

Clarke pauses at another picture of Costia, without Lexa in it this time. She’s throwing her head back in laughter, the colorful banner from the drinks station blurred behind her, adding to the atmosphere that seems to fit her perfectly. “Oh, Costia looks  _ gorgeous _ in this one,” Clarke says, because it’s true, and gives the camera back.

“She does. She  _ is _ ,” Lexa murmurs gently, almost to herself as she takes the camera in her hands and looks at her fiancée for a long moment before sighing, her lips pressed together in a tight line. There’s something to it that Clarke can’t quite put a name to, and whatever was there is gone by the time Lexa looks back at her, “Have you seen her already? We should go find her.”

Before Clarke can answer, Lexa is walking past her, around the table and towards the crowd, leaving her to follow. 

The spirited and quite loud chatting blends with the twangy music floating all around them and it leaves little silence for them to fill. It takes Clarke a few steps to catch up with Lexa, people and chairs getting in her way, and they walk side by side. Their arms brush once - a quick thing, someone bumped into one and the movement carried, gone before Clarke even realized it - and Lexa skips to the side, almost like a cat who got scared by a fly before realizing what it was.

Clarke sucks in her bottom lip and bites down on it to keep herself from making a joke, because they’re not quite there yet. While Clarke feels more comfortable around Lexa than it’s probably wise, the other woman clearly doesn’t - she’s making an effort because it means a lot for Costia, but Lexa is hardly the most easy going person Clarke knows and that’s saying a  _ lot _ .

They find Costia playing with a little girl - the one Lexa photographed, with the big dress and toothy smile - and they both stand aside to watch for a moment. The girl twirls round and round for Costia to see, her laughter filling the space around them when Costia praises her dancing skills, tells her she can’t wait to see her recital.

When the tiny ballerina skips off towards some kids gathering to play hide and seek, Clarke looks at Lexa for a moment, just to find her looking at Costia with such love it makes her feel like she’s intruding something, which is something that happens often with these two. Clarke can almost see the engines working inside Lexa’s brain, a whole life spent with Costia spreading out in front of her - early mornings picking flowers in their garden, a toddler running around them, maybe a few dogs napping in the lazy sun.

Clarke peels her eyes off of her, shaking her head slightly to purge those thoughts. It’s official - there’s only so many country songs someone can listen to and remain sane.

Turning towards them as the girl disappears into the crowd, Costia locks eyes with Lexa for a moment, a smile tugging at her lips before the even realizes Clarke is there as well, “You made it!”

“Of course I did,” Clarke can barely get the words out before arms wrapped around her and she’s engulfed in a hug. She chuckles, because she can’t remember ever hugging  _ so much _ back in Chicago, and hugs Costia tight, pressing a kiss to her cheek, “Congratulations, Cos. It all looks amazing,  _ you _ look amazing.”

They part away from the hug, leaving their hands linked for a moment, and Clarke takes Costia in. She radiates warmth with her long yellow dress, her shoulders and back naked, her tight curls styled with a golden pin wrapping them to one side. She’ll make a beautiful bride, Clarke knows it.

“Thanks, babe!” Costia squeezes her hands before letting go, wrapping one arm around Lexa’s waist and pressing her whole body against her fiancée’s, “I’m so darn happy to be here with this grumpy lady.”

Lexa halfheartedly rolls her eyes, sighing as she sinks into the embrace. “I’m not grumpy,” she says, in a tone Clarke would only describe as  _ grumpy _ , and Costia looks at her, mimicking the frown as she presses her thumb in between her eyebrows, soothing the crinkle in there.

“I-” Clarke starts, but the words get caught in her throat. She realizes what she’s done and kicks herself for the way she approached Lexa,  _ one of the brides _ \- it was a lot of light teasing and not much as one word about the engagement, “Shoot, I didn’t congratulate you.”

“Go ahead now,” Costia says simply, patting Lexa’s back and all but pushing her forward, “See if you can get that frown from her forehead before we have dinner.” 

It earns her a “ _ Cos _ ” that could have been a warning, if it had been sharper and less filled with fondness. Costia tickles Lexa’s belly once, just enough for a smile to tug at her lips and her frown disappear completely, and Clarke isn’t even sure she wants to break that moment.

But she braces herself and takes a step forward, opening her arms enough for Lexa to fit in - which she does after a moment’s hesitation, her arms settling lightly against the dip of her shoulder blades, her breath hitting her neck as they press together.

If her heart jumps and starts being in a staccato, Clarke convinces herself it’s because there’s something different about being the one initiating a hug, about hugging someone she’s not used to. It’s simply that. There’s nothing to do about feeling Lexa’s heart beating against hers, her skin tingling as her breath hits the fine hair of her neck, her throat closing when Lexa squeezes her just a little bit tighter.

When Clarke jumps away in the same fashion Lexa did mere moments ago, putting some much needed distance in between them, she tries to make it feel more effortless than it looked.

She doesn’t feel like making any jokes now.

“Congratulations, Lexa,” Clarke forces past the lump in her throat, feeling a little too proud of herself for making her voice come out even.

Lexa nods and Costia excuses themselves, wrapping her fingers around her fiancée’s and teasing her about going to greet her uncle - from the groan that Lexa lets out, it’s safe to assume it’s the one who tells the same story every single time he sees them

Clarke makes a beeline for the drinks station.

The drinks station is cute, if not a little less than functional, all pink and orange fabrics with a chalkboard drawn menu - she gets to choose between mimosa, beer and sangria,  _ hooray _ . Clarke hopes more than assumes the wedding will have the proper bar she’s used to, with a bartender to bribe and keep her martinis coming, but this will make do for now.

She thinks about making herself a mimosa, even if the afternoon is ending and she’s not at brunch, but she opts for getting some sangria - it’s still wine, so she can at least pretend she’s not so out of her comfort zone. She pours half a mason jar from a beautiful drink jug and adds a few lime slices and strawberries for decor, sinking a straw into it before taking a first sip. 

It’s very southern and very sweet, a world away from what she’s used to, but it’s light enough that she can sip it all afternoon to keep herself busy.

Clarke takes the party in for a moment, her eyes jumping from an elderly couple laughing at the table to kids ducking arms and drinks as they run through the crowd - and stopping when they find Lexa. Being  _ this _ drawn to Lexa makes Clarke groan at herself, wish her sangria was something stronger. But still, she lets her gaze stay on her for a moment because truthfully, no one can blame her for looking at the brides.

So she takes Lexa in, how her hand grips her fiancée’s in an effortless way, how their bodies move in sync after years of being together, how her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes as she talks to Costia’s dad and someone else, who Clarke assumes is the weird uncle. It’s almost like social interaction is tiring for her, if the difference between her now and her taking pictures is anything to go by.

When she catches herself watching the way Lexa puts her hand in the front pocket of her twill shorts, taking in the way her button down shirt is tucked inside it, wondering why she wants to get into politics at all if being close to people isn’t really something she’s interested it, Clarke forces herself to peel her eyes away.

Because there’s looking at the brides and then there’s thirsting after one of them, and the lines are getting blurred.

Clarke pulls her phone out to see if Wells answered her and send him the last picture she took, deciding that scrolling through social media until she can go find her mom and Marcus to tell them she’s stealing the car and going home is as good an idea as any.

Her Facebook used to be filled with weekly updates on whatever party she was at in between shifts that weekend peppered with almost daily posts of interesting things she found during her breaks. Now, it’s a land deserted enough to array tumbleweeds - because what’s she even going to share when she lives in Polis, North Carolina.

Still, she spends most of her days scrolling past posts she doesn’t really want to see and making herself angry - it’s pretty much all that’s  _ left _ to do when patients refuse to see her. And apparently, today won’t be any different. Clarke scrolls past a few funny posts she’s seen a dozen times before, saves some articles to read later, watches a video on tumor dissection and pauses when she sees a certain picture.

People she went to residency with, going out for drinks to celebrate their fellowships, the caption tagging everyone in there and where they’re headed now.

Bile rises to her throat and Clarke barely has the energy to force it down - she was supposed to be there. She  _ knows _ she’s more capable than those fucking halfwits that used to come to  _ her _ for advice on the simplest diagnostics, and it makes her blood boils.

Rolling her eyes so back in her head it makes her forehead hurt, Clarke angrily locks her phone and shoves it back in her purse, swearing off social media for the time being.

“Boyfriend made you mad?” Someone slides beside her, the southern drawl to his voice a bitter reminder of where she is and what she’s doing.

Clarke turns towards him with her lips pursed into a thin line, her anger still simmering within her chest. She gives him a once over, trying to keep her city girl self from judging him too harshly as she takes in his pointed boots, oversized belt buckle and tucked in flannel shirt, landing on his innocent face that screams trouble. “Not a boyfriend,” she answers, her tone just clipped enough to send him on his way if he scares easily.

“Well, whoever did, they’re a fool,” he states simply, like it’s a no brainer, and it makes Clarke’s lips tug up slightly. He stretches his hand towards her, palm up, “I’m Finn. I’m Costia’s produce guy.”

Shaking his hand in a  _ ‘nice to meet you _ ’ gesture, Clarke quirks ups an eyebrow, “Her… Produce guy? It sounds dirty.”

Finn lets out an easy laughter, tossing his head back in a way that makes his long hair wave for a moment before it falls on his eye, and he brushes it back - it’s charming, she’ll give him that. “No, ma’am.” There’s something inherently  _ southern _ about calling someone else  _ ma’am _ , especially when she’s pretty much about his age, but she takes it for what it is, “I just bring her the fruits she needs to bake her pastries.”

Clarke nods, takes a sip from her sangria, watches him do the same with his beer, “I’m Clarke, by the way.”

“Yeah, you’re the new doc,” Finn raises his beer in a half salute, “You’re not what I pictured at all.” Clarke narrows her eyes at him, raising her eyebrow in a silent question. “Guy who works with me threw his back out and went to the clinic, said he couldn’t trust the new one with that. But it looks like he’d be in good hands.”

If she had any doubt about the flirty nature of his words, the look he gives her makes her absolutely sure.

It leans dangerously close to being tacky, but Clarke doesn’t back away. She holds his eyes for a beat too long before the answers, “You seem to be the only one in this whole town who thinks so.”

Finn takes a step closer, as if he’s about to lean in and whisper something that no one but her should hear, but someone calls her name before he can say anything. Turning towards the crowd to find whoever it is, Clarke finds Costia jogging towards her, a shy smile on her lips.

“I need you to keep my fiancée sane for a little while,” Costia announces as she pulls Clarke away, barely giving her enough time to set her drink down, “I need to get everyone towards the lawn games and I need to shield her from my gross uncle.”

Clarke frowns, trying to catch up on what the hell she means, “Costia, what? I-” She looks back at Finn, who’s scratching his neck as he watches her go, and then finds Lexa in the crowd, looking blissfully unaware of her fiancée’s plans, “”I think she can fend for herself.”

“I know she can. I just-” Costia slows down her stride just enough for her to sigh and look at Clarke, worry showing as she glares at her from under thick eyelashes, “Finn is a good produce guy, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good  _ guy _ .”

“He seems decent enough,” Clarke shrugs, tempted to untangle her arm from Costia’s grip and go back to Finn out of pure spite. She’s a far cry from a damsel in distress who needs to be whisked away before falling prey to a shitty guy.

“He can be charming, yes. But he’s broken quite a few hearts around here,” Costia squeezes her arm so gently Clarke can’t stay mad at her - she means well, she’s being a good friend and Clarke can’t say she has many of those lying around, “Be careful, okay? “

“I’m a big girl, I can handle it,” Clarke says for good measure before smiling at Costia and looking at the makeshift dance floor with only a handful of couples dancing to the upbeat song. “Do I really need to dance?”

Costia laughs and bats her eyelashes at Clarke in a way that seems more cartoonish than she thought possible, “Yes, please? For me? For the bride to be?”

Groaning at the blatant bribery, Clarke sighs dramatically, “Okay, that’s  _ low _ . But alright.”

There are worse ways to spend her time than dancing with her friend’s fiancée to make said friend happy during her engagement party - if that means she’ll be dancing with a pretty woman who she most certainly does not have a crush on, well, that’s just how it is. 

With one last look behind her to catch Finn still watching her walk away, Clarke forces herself to listen to whatever Costia is saying - something about a cousin she needs to keep away from Finn as well. It’s a small town and she’s pretty sure she’ll run into him again.

“Lex, babe,” Costia lets go of Clarke’s arm as they get close enough, lightly jogging the rest of the way towards her fiancée, touching her waist to get her attention, “Dance with Clarke for two minutes until I come pick you up?”

Lexa looks away from whatever had catched her attention in the far back of the garden and glances at Clarke before meeting Costia’s eyes, her face giving away how she’s most definitely not in on all of this, “What?”

Costia kisses her cheek, pressing her body against her for a moment as she lets out a cheerful ‘ _ thanks, babe _ ’, and all but jogs her way to a few stands placed a few yards away from all the commotion, ready to get the games started. They both watch her for a moment, her curls bouncing as she runs before explaining anything.

Sighing defeatedly, Clarke turns to Lexa to explain, wishing she hadn’t put her drink down only so she could have something to do with her hands, “Apparently, Costia is saving me from having my heart broken.”

Lexa frowns and follows Clarke’s eyes as she looks over her shoulder, finding Finn pushing away from the drinks stand and walking towards someone, sipping from his beer as he goes. Clarke hears a less than discreet grunt and shifts back to Lexa, catching the end of her eye roll. “Yeah, he’s scum,” Lexa says and something about her tone tells Clarke she knows it first hand. She’s about to ask what the hell did he do for both brides to despise him so much but still ask him to their engagement party when Lexa rolls her shoulders back, tilts her head, “Guess we’re dancing then.”

“We don’t have to,” Clarke says, much for Lexa’s benefit as for her own - she’s having a hard enough time keeping butterflies from spurting to life in her stomach and making their way to her chest and lungs  _ without _ knowing what Lexa’s body feels like pressed against hers.

And well, it’s been a while since Clarke danced anything that requires the slightest hint of rhythm to it.

“I promise I won’t step on your feet, Clarke,” Lexa says with a smirk, something in her eyes reminding of their first encounter. It feels like that happened a lifetime ago, not just a couple of weeks, and when she nods her head towards the dance floor, Clarke can’t find it within herself to argue, “Come on.”

Clarke holds her breath when she feels Lexa placing her palm on the small of her back, leading her to the little open area where people are dancing. It’s a light touch, barely there, but Clarke can feel the warmth seeping through the fabric of her cami, making her shiver against the late afternoon breeze that feels suddenly too cold.

When she finds herself gritting her teeth as they walk through the couples dancing, Clarke tells herself she’s just touched starved and, to put it simply, horny. Her very steady hookup ditched Chicago for Jacksonville - she would have too, if it meant a fellowship in Mayo Clinic - and with the throwing-her-whole-career-out-the-window-and-moving-back-home thing she’s been through, Clarke hadn’t really had  _ time _ to address anything. 

She makes a point to enunciate the words with her inside voice that the warmth pooling in her stomach has nothing to do with it being Lexa who’s touching her. It’s only her basic needs overpowering her logical brain, nothing else.

Maybe the cowboy back there could help Clarke out and if the thought of it pushes her a tad to the wrong way of excited, she tells herself it’s because Finn isn’t exactly the kind of guy she’s used to.

A new song comes on as they find a clearing to stand on, the first notes making it clear it’s a slow one. Clarke feels awkward, like she’s in her first middle school dance and nobody quite taught her where to even put her hands. But Lexa takes a step closer to her and snakes the hand she had on her back until she’s wrapping her arm around her waist, takes her hand in hers and drops it to her chest as she nudges Clarke to put her other hand on her shoulder.

It feels effortless, the way Lexa manages to make them fit together.

They sway more or less in the rhythm of the song, their bodies too close for Clarke to breathe right - again, again and again she tells herself it’s just because she hasn’t been with anyone in a while, there’s nothing more to it, it has nothing to do with how warm Lexa feels in her arms, like the sun kissed her in the morning and it still lingers in her skin, nothing to do with how  _ right _ this feels.

She forces herself to pay attention to the lyrics, because the alternative is to pay attention to the way her skin burns with the warmth coming from the palm pressed against her waist, the way goosebumps rise in her arm as they adjust their hands, the way they’re close enough for Lexa’s breath to hit her neck and make her fight a shiver.

As she’s pushing through the fog in her mind to make out the words in the song, she realizes there’s another voice - a softer, lighter voice - singing along, only loud enough for Clarke to hear it. “ _ Hey, pretty girl, it feels so right - just like it's meant to be all wrapped up in my arms so tight. Hey pretty girl, it feels so right _ .”

Clarke chuckles softly to herself and looks out to the far back where lights are coming on and Costia is organizing everyone into teams, before turning back to Lexa, pulling back just enough to see her face. 

“You like this song?” she asks softly, her voice breaking a little, her heart picking up its pace as the light hits Lexa’s eyes and turns forest green into earthy gold. Lexa tilts her head, humming out her confusion, and Clarke explains, “You’re- I mean, you were singing along.”

“Oh.” Lexa blinks at her for a moment and looks away, staring intently at something behind her. Clarke can see a soft blush making its way up her neck, coloring the tip of her ear, can almost feel the warmth it brought, “It’s one of my favorites, actually.”

Clarke nods, smiles and falls back into swaying one way and another, because there’s nothing else to say. She almost regrets pointing out to Lexa that she had been singing along with the song, wishing she hadn’t stopped singing, but it only takes a few more moments before Lexa lets herself get distracted and starts humming the song once more.

_ Life's a lonely, winding ride, better have the right one by your side. And happiness don't drag its feet, and time moves faster than you think. _

Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Clarke silently curses the lyrics Lexa is murmuring near her ear. Because life is different in a small town like this and for the first time in her life, Clarke feels the gaping hole in her chest where a romantic history should be stretch painfully, rip apart the surrounding tissue, poke at her lungs, making it hard to breathe.

She’s never had the time or  _ patience _ for a relationship, always too busy with herself to make room for someone else. High school had been filled to the brim with extra curricular activities to make sure she got into a good college, then college had been packed with classes too hard for her to have time for anything other than a fuck buddy. 

And that became her new normal, it bled into med school and residency, it had been good enough for her.

Clarke never even knew what she had been missing out on until she moved to this small town where time goes by slowly and people don’t seem to be rushing from one thing to get to the next. 

“ _ Let’s build some dreams and a house on a piece of land, plant some roots and some apple trees. _ ”

She never believed she needed someone close to her at all until she started listening to all these damn songs - pop music talks about relationships, country music makes her crave it, makes her want more than someone to warm her bed for one night or two, makes her want to know what it’s like to know someone else’s body like the back of her hand, to have someone she can come home to, someone she can share her life with.

Gritting her teeth against the sudden loneliness that flows through her veins, Clarke looks around the garden, trying to find anyone who looks like Lexa, “Which ones are your folks?”

Lexa jolts ever so slightly, like she’d been deep in thought and Clarke’s voice pulled her back to reality faster than she wanted to. “None,” Lexa says simply, and Clarke draws back just enough for her to meet green eyes with a question, “ My parents died when I was in college. They were both only children, so no aunts or uncles or cousins.”

Cold washes over her - so much for keeping the conversation light. “I didn’t mean to pry,” Clarke whispers as they sway around and if she clings a little tighter to Lexa’s arms, she tells herself it’s the sudden movement that made her do so, “I’m sorry, Lexa. I know what’s like to lose a parent, and I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.”

Because that’s the truth. Clarke lost her dad when she was just old enough to miss him deeply, to have fond memories of him and a bitter taste in the back of her throat at knowing she’d never get to make any new ones. But she still had her mom, someone to be her north star. 

Nodding once, Lexa tightens her grip around her waist just for a moment, “I make me grow up a lot faster than I wanted to.” That’s all she offers and Clarke leaves it at that, not wanting to push her in any way, least of all today.

Clarke adjusts her arm around Lexa until it feels more like a half hug than anything else. “It looks like you’re gonna have more family than you know what to do with now,” she says in a whisper as the song comes to an end, staying in place for a moment too long.

“I guess I will,” Lexa murmurs back, her hand squeezing Clarke’s gently after the last few notes play, holding on to this dance for just a little while longer. When their eyes meet and hold on to each other, Clarke can’t help the way her stomach drops a few inches.

Before she treacherous heart can start to wonder if Lexa’s skin feels this warm even in the winter, if she’s a beacon of warmth anyone in their sound mind would cling to, they step away from one another, drawing in a breath when they see Costia standing right beside them.

Clarke feels her skin tingling where Lexa had been touching her only a moment ago, the sudden lack of warmth feeling nothing short of odd. 

She curses herself for daring to crave her touch when Costia - the only friend she has in this hell of a town, the sweetest person she could ever meet - wraps her arms around Lexa’s waist, going on and on about how half the people are playing lawn games, the kids are down the orchard climbing trees to pick fresh oranges and she wants to dance with her fiancée. 

Excusing herself, saying she needs to go finish the sangria  _ someone didn’t let her _ \- she says this with a pointed glare at Costia, who laughs unapologetic - and squeezes Lexa’s arm one last time before letting go. 

If Costia stares at the gesture for a beat too long, Clarke can’t bring herself to think anything of it when she all but gives her a thumbs up. Because Costia wants her childhood friend to be friends with her fiancée, that’s all. And she should get to have that without said Clarke screwing things up like she always does.

Clarke drags her feet towards the drink stand, wondering where she could find something a lot stronger than sangria to quell the ache in her chest - an ache she has no business having. When she looks up, she finds Finn walking towards her, bringing her a new mason jar full of sangria, complete with strawberries and lemon slices, “Did Costia warn you against me?”

“Maybe a little,” Clarke says with an easy grin, sipping her drink to half hide it, “I guess every little town has its certified heartbreaker.”

She means it as a joke, but it puts a damper in Finn’s smile. “I’m not a bad guy, Clarke,” he says in a voice that tells Clarke too many people have told him that he  _ is _ . “I’ve done some stupid things, but I’m really not that bad.”

Truthfully, Clarke couldn’t care less. She’s been with her share of cold hearted girls and right down awful guys, probably worse than Finn could ever dream to be, and she’s come out of it more of less unscathered. She’s never let herself stay long enough to get hurt anyway. “I guess we all have our own ghosts.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Finn touches the bottom of his beer bottle to the side of Clarke’s jar, both of them taking a sip big enough to tell they both had issues they didn’t want to address.

A little boy comes running towards them, avoiding a collision with barely an inch to spare, his tiny hands clinging to too many oranges that he probably wants someone to peel for him. As he goes on his merrily way, Finn touches Clarke’s waist and guides her to the side, away from the comotion, just in the outskirts of the party so they could watch it unfold, but have some privacy.

Finn’s touch is fine, it’s gentle in a way that doesn’t exist in the midwest, but it barely holds a candle to the fire Lexa’s left in its wake.

“They make a beautiful couple, don’t they?” Finn says when he notices Clarke watching the brides dancing, and for a moment, she can’t take her eyes off of them.

Costia goes back to Lexa after asking the DJ, who Clarke is pretty sure she’s seen working in the grocery store, for a different song, wrapping her arms around Lexa’s middle when the first notes play. They fall into each other, hands falling into their favorite places without any of the awkwardness Clarke felt, without anything that could possibly tell they’re not meant to be. 

“They really do,” Clarke replies, trying to force a smile out, falling just short of it. Finn leans closer to her, in a way that is as nonchalant as it is telling, and she shifts a few inches towards him - because she knows where this is going.

She watches the way Lexa smiles softly and leans back, catching Costia’s eyes before singing along to the song filling the late afternoon air.  _ And I said I wanna be your forever, so baby will you be my wife? _

_ Now that we know a little better we could have a real nice life, ‘cause I'm what you want and you’re what I need so let's meet in between _ . Clarke pays half attention to the lyrics, wondering if it was written for them when she realizes it tells the story of how they fell apart before getting back together.

They  _ are _ meant to be together and Clarke needs to get over that stupid schoolgirl crush she has on Lexa. And she  _ will _ get over it. It’s nothing more than infatuation at meeting a pretty girl who’s clearly out of her league after not getting any action for far too long. It’s nothing worth jeopardizing an engagement over.

_ We're gonna be the greatest love story this town has ever seen _ .

And the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, isn’t it? Finn is standing far too close for comfort, but Clarke doesn’t mind, her body reacting to it with a light simmer deep down her stomach. It’s good enough for now.

She sizes him up, her eyes going from his dark hair brushed back and away from his eyes, to the stubble that shades his sharp jaw, to his chest, wondering if he’s hiding any abs under that flannel. He seems harmless enough, no matter how much warning he comes with.

Clarke doesn’t really want to wait for him to get his act together and ask her out on a date to woo her, or whatever the hell they do this down south. She doesn’t have the patience or the  _ time _ for that.

Looking back to the brides for a moment, Clarke watches them laugh at a shared joke, watches Costia pulling Lexa’s collar towards her until their lips meet, watches them fall into it like the world around them disappears. When Finn peels his eyes from them and turns to Clarke, she can see just what is playing inside his head and something tells her she’s not the one who’s going to have their heart broken when it’s all said and done.

“So,” Finn starts, taking another sip from his beer as he takes Clarke in, “What’s your story, doc?”

Smirking just for the effect it’ll bring, Clarke looks at him through her eyelashes and lowers her voice until only he can hear the huskiness in it, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Clarke is half waiting for a chuckle, the humorless kind that’s charged with sexual energy that makes it clear that she won’t be going home alone. But when Finn answers, he’s serious, finding her gaze and locking it with his, “Yeah, I would.”

If the alternative is stepping outside this party, maybe finding a spot near the orchard where they can talk and swap life stories, pour their feelings out before they even make it to a second drink, Clarke has no trouble in choosing to cling to his neck and pull him down to a kiss. 

His stubble brushes against her lips and the hand he snakes to her waist grips harder than she anticipated, but she closes her eyes and tries to fall into it, missing the way Lexa stares at them when she looks up from Costia’s neck.

 


	4. i keep this love (no, not love) in a photograph

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the grocery store mentioned here is an _actual_ , real place in my hometown! It has a regular name, but we mostly call it by a nickname that the first owner, who died before I was even more, had. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading this - and every kudos, every comment, all the love you throw my way. I have a blast writing this story to the sound of good ol' country music and seeing my childhood town through rose-tinted glasses, and it thrills me to see you guys enjoying this :')

Taking work home is the seamy side of being a lawyer. Lexa has been doing it ever since she started her internship in a law firm, when she’d carry home more confidential files than she knew what to do with, go over them with highlighters and sticky notes, carry them back to the office after a full three hours of sleep. It’s something that comes with the job.

Still, looking at the dozen or so files resting on the passenger seat of her truck makes her wince.

She doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. There’s an audit next week and they have too many things to get in order before it happens, so everyone in the city hall is either doing extra time or taking work home. Or, in her case, both.

The topics go from dull to awfully boring, and even the mere thought of staying up until two, three in the morning going over budget reports and their respective balance sheets makes Lexa want to crawl out of her skin. But she needs to get it done, no matter how much coffee she drinks to keep herself awake.

Closing the door with a little more force than she needs to, Lexa drags her feet towards the town square without bothering to set the alarm or even roll the windows all the way up. It’s seven in the evening on a Thursday and Polis is already curling in on itself, ready to go in for the night. The sun has set only a little while ago, but the afternoon chatter has died down until only the crickets hidden in the bushes are making any sounds, all shops have closed - except for Jordan’s pub, that might go on until nine or ten - and even the houses themselves seem to get quieter as dinner is getting served.

As she walks down a path her feet know by heart, Lexa reveals in the stillness that comes with the evening in a small town. There’s a warm breeze in the air and she aches for sweet tea in a porch swing, a good book and maybe instrumental music playing somewhere in the distance. But, right now, she needs coffee and the promise of a better weekend to keep herself going.

Besides, she hasn’t seen Costia in a couple days.

It’s not that she’s been avoiding her fiancée. It just happened that their engagement party happened in the last quiet weekend she had before things picked up at work in a way that left her running around all day long and even crossing the town square to say hello seemed like too much time to waste. Costia had brought her lunch a few days, had slept over her place one night or two, but trying to fall asleep when Lexa typed away furiously on her laptop hadn’t been so fun.

It’s all just a coincidence, Lexa tells herself as even the breeze dies down around her. It’s just the universe pulling a prank on them and keeping them distant when they should be closest.

When she gets to the bakery and sees the door still half open, a dim light coming from inside along with conversation that carries out, Lexa frowns. It’s late. Costia should be done cleaning up by now, should be at her home getting ready to have dinner with her mom - because Lexa new her dad was still at the city hall, would be there until probably midnight or so.

So, instead of heading to the craftsman house beside it, Lexa walks in the bakery. She can’t quite make out the voices for a moment, but when laughter roars from somewhere in the back, she can’t help but smile a little herself. “Cos?”

There’s a lull in conversation, a pause, then Lexa hears shuffling from the kitchen, the distinct crinkle that only a plastic container can make, doors opening. Then she’s being engulfed in a warm hug that seems to melt away all the exhaustion from the day, and she sinks into it before Costia says anything.

“Hi, babe,” Costia whispers, pressing her lips on Lexa’s neck and squeezing her into the hug a little tighter before letting go altogether. Her skin is warm where Lexa’s is colder, and she smells like coming home, “I didn’t think I’d see you today. Daddy told me how busy you guys are.”

Lexa draws back, nodding once and clasping her hands on her back. She can’t shake the guilty feeling that wraps around her at taking comfort in Costia’s embrace like that. “We’ll make it, but only barely. Audit is on Tuesday and we still have…” The words get away from her, completely forgotten as she turns to see who Costia had been talking to. “What are you doing here?”

Gritting her teeth, Lexa recoils at how hostile her own words sound. She doesn’t have to look at Costia to know she has a disapproving frown, she can  _ feel  _ the heat of her glare. It was supposed to be a casual question, just making conversation, she hadn’t mean for it to come out like an accusation. But seeing Clarke after a twelve hour work day took her aback.

Seeing Clarke at all surprises her a little.

Lexa has been firmly ignoring any mention of her for the last week and a half, nodding along whatever Costia would tell her about Clarke and coming up with excuses whenever she suggested they spent some time together. Lexa knows it’s important to Costia that they get along, even if it’s been nearing disaster so far. Lexa knows that, but can’t bring herself to have Clarke over for dinner and pretend everything is okay.

Part of her tells herself this is her own issue to deal with and there’s no reason she should upset both Costia  _ and  _ Clarke in the process, but the other part of her falls to pieces every time her eyes meet Clarke’s, kicking and screaming, cursing the road that led to them meeting now. 

If only their paths had crossed when they were both in Chicago. If only things were different.

At the engagement party, Lexa had let herself go. Under the pretense of doing a favor for Costia, she let herself go. She let her hand find home in the small of Clarke’s back for a moment, before wrapping her arm around her middle and bringing her ever so close. She allowed herself to take her hand into hers, let them rest on her chest as they swayed together. Lexa let herself go for a single moment, and before she realizes, she was singing into Clarke’s blonde curls, breathing her in without meaning to, telling her stories that she had no business hearing.

It’s not that Lexa doesn’t love Costia, it’s not that she’s in love with Clarke. It’s just that Clarke’s mere presence makes her feel things she didn’t think she could possibly feel anymore. It’s just that, with her unapologetically city ways and piercing blue eyes, Clarke has made Lexa wonder about living the life she left behind when she came back, a life she never allowed herself to live.

She needs time to get over it - that’s all. She won’t break her engagement off just to see if things could work out with a woman she barely knows, she isn’t out of her mind.

But it might happen soon enough if she keeps running into Clarke like this.

“Getting dessert,” Clarke answers after a beat, pointing to the counter and the plastic container that holds one of the bakery’s famous apple pies. If she got offended by Lexa’s question, she doesn’t show it, “Marcus is coming over for dinner and I’m in charge of dessert, but I can’t bake to save my life.”

Costia settles her hand on her arm, tightening her grip ever so slightly - her own Southern way to warn Lexa to watch her mouth. “Clarke was just telling me she saw old Wallace today, at the clinic,” Costia says with a warm, proud smile as she looks at Clarke, searching for any hurt in her features, before turning to Lexa, “He agreed to let her give him meds and they talked about art and stuff. It’s nice, isn’t it?”

Her glare didn’t allow for any doubt about what Lexa’s answer should be.

“Yes, it is. That’s great, Clarke,” Lexa forces herself to smile as she squeezes out the words. She wants to know more about her day and how she convinced Dante Wallace of all people, and that’s exactly why she needs to go home. “I’ll leave you two to it. I just wanted to say hello. And I talked to Anya about the shoot and she wants to go this Saturday. I should have everything for the audit ready by then, so I figured we could get away for the afternoon.”

It’s been a while since Lexa had taken a whole day to do nothing but be with her camera, photograph Costia and fall in love all over again. 

But Costia’s expression falls. “Oh, shoot,” Costia curses under her breath - or as much of a curse as her upbringing will allow her, “We have an order for Sunday morning that will take us all day to make.”

Lexa feels her eyebrows shooting up and her mouth pursing in disappointment before she can school it back to a neutral expression, “It’s okay. We can reschedule.”

“I know how much you’ve been looking forward to this,” Costia lightens her touch, drawing circles with her thumb to comfort Lexa - it’s an old gesture, one that works every time. Then she smiles her devious little smile and turns to Clarke, “What about you take Clarke instead? She looks photogenic enough and you know she won’t be working that hard on Saturday.”

“Thanks, Cos,” Clarke says sarcastically and rolls her eyes, all but sticking her tongue out, making Costia laugh. “But, what’s happening on Saturday?”

“Anya and I…” Lexa pauses when her voice comes out hoarse, taking a moment to clear her throat. She needs to force herself to speak again, knowing each word she says only digs her grave a little deeper. “She photographed our engagement under the condition I went on a photoshoot with her. Each one of us would bring our models and we’d spend an afternoon in a farm.”

“And her go to model is me,” Costia picks up where she left, pointing to herself in a cheeky way before turning back to Lexa and taking her hands in hers, “But babe, you know all my angles and every picture you take of me is flawless. Maybe you need someone new.”

It’s exactly what Lexa  _ doesn’t _ need. What she needs is her fiancée posing for her, giving her as many silly faces as sultry ones, basking in the afternoon sun with her. 

Gritting her teeth to keep herself from saying more than she should, Lexa gives Costia what she thinks is a meaningful look, squeezing her hands gently. “I don’t think Clarke would like it.”

“Come on, Clarke would love it,” Costia says, oblivious to Lexa’s silent pleading, whipping her head back to look at Clarke “Wouldn’t you? You need to get out, anyway. You need to get to know more than the inside of your mom’s clinic and get some sun in you,” she goes on, ignoring both women shifting uncomfortably, giving them more than sensible reasons why this would work, “Besides, Raven will be there, you like Raven.”

“I guess,” Clarke says, shrugging almost defeatedly. “If Lexa doesn’t mind it.”

“Great. She absolutely doesn’t,” Costia grips Lexa’s hands tighter and places a quick kiss on her cheek before turning back to talk to Clarke, “How about you come over so I can find you something less city-girl to wear and Lexa will pick you up after lunch?”

Lexa leaves after agreeing on a time for her to drop by so they can drive to the farm and if her heart swells at the thought of spending a whole afternoon photographing Clarke, her guilt shrinks it back down to the size of a raisin.

Lexa brews her own coffee - with no sugar, no cream, strong enough to keep her awake until well past four, well past the time she finishes everything she brought home to get done.

She peels herself from bed at seven in the morning, eyes burning from staring at spreadsheets all night, back aching from the awkward position. Her Friday at the office goes by in a blur of files to redact and bad coffee that barely does its job. Lexa knows she’s running on fumes and the headache she has in the afternoon is because she hasn’t eaten all day, but she needs to get this done. If only she  _ gets this done _ , she can have her Saturday to herself, to roam the fields and snap every picture she wants to guilt free.

Her weeks are all more or less like that - the days crawl by in a mess of urgent matters that don’t quite seem so urgent when she’s home, eating whatever food she can muster the courage to cook before she falls in bed, aching for Friday. But that’s what being an adult entails, and she’s made her peace with it.

It still takes a toll on his mood when five o’clock comes and goes and she still has a small mountain of files that need her attention. Lexa sighs, pilling it on her passenger seat and taking work home once more. Every time, she says it’ll be the last time. Every time, she does it again. She isn’t sure she’ll ever manage to  _ enjoy _ the paperwork, like some insane people in the office seem to do. But it’ll keep her mind busy.

Lexa doesn’t see Costia before going home. Her clothes cling to her uncomfortably and she can’t muster the energy to cross the square to see her fiancée. She needs a shower and some whiskey, both to get her through another night of late work and to keep her annoyance at bay. Costia means well, she knows that much, and it’s not her fault that her fiancée can’t seem to keep her heart in check, but Lexa has been looking forward to this afternoon with Costia, has been praying that she could fix everything with just that.

She’s been having an off couple weeks. That’s all.

After forcing herself to get a full eight hours of sleep, Lexa wakes up on Saturday morning feeling slightly more like herself. She takes her time making country ham with red-eye gravy and some grits, listening to some old tunes that always come on the radio this early on weekends. Stealing these moments is what keeps her sane, what keeps her going when she looks at the pile of work she’s barely touched all evening, her head too full for her to get much done.

Office is empty on Saturday, everyone either having finished their allotted paperwork or waiting for Monday to come so they can do it them. Her hearty breakfast is enough to keep her going and the idea of some time with her camera pulls her through the last few reports she has to write again. By one thirty, her desk is organized and free of any clutter, and the files lay neatly on the center with sticky notes marking where she needs to get signatures.

Besides that detail, she’s all set for Tuesday, when the audit people are coming. Lexa shuts everything off and closes the door behind her -  _ finally _ , her weekend starts.

Stretching her hands up above her head, Lexa works a few kinks in her spine as she makes her way through the town’s square. It’s like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders and she can finally,  _ finally _ breathe. 

The bakery has its usual Saturday lunch crowd - Polis citizens are nothing, if not creatures of habit - and Lexa greets a few of them who bother to look up from their meal. Even the air seems to be lighter now that she doesn’t have work weighing her down, dragging her mood through the dirt, and she feels less silly about her outfit. She’s wearing a flowy maxi dress that ripples in the wind, which is something a lot less appropriate for office than what she normally wears. But it’s handy when she needs to crouch down on the ground to take pictures.

Perching herself up on a stool, she waits for Astrid, Costia’s mom, to finish ringing someone up before coming to her. She’s become a second mother to Lexa within a few weeks of dating Costia all the way back in high school and that has never changed. Astrid walks over to her a moment later, cupping her cheek in a soft hello and commenting on the dark bags under her eyes. After assuring her it’s a momentary worry and she’ll get more than enough sleep once the audit has passed, Lexa is rewarded with coffee and biscuits with pancetta and collard greens. 

Her stomach rumbles painfully, reminding her she hasn’t eaten in quite a while, but Lexa asks if she could get it all to go - Anya is waiting for her around two and she still needs to find Costia. She’s about to head out to find her when a familiar voice catches her attention and she turns to the door, finding both Costia and Clarke walking inside, chatting about something she can’t make out.

But she’s beyond paying attention to their conversation.

Her mind goes blank as she takes Clarke in, leaving her so awestruck that she can’t even kick herself for staring. Clarke is wearing Costia’s clothes. Sandals that are so delicately bedazzled that she can’t find herself to hate them, a light long sleeved boho dress that falls well above her knees, the color a soft cream that nearly matches Clarke’s light complexion. It’d look incredible in the sunset. Her hair is down and curled, cascading down over one shoulder in waves.

She looks as Southern as they come.

Costia presses a kiss to her cheek, snapping her back to reality, and Lexa has the good sense of breathing again. “She looks very cute, doesn’t she? A real Southern belle, if I do say so myself,” Costia says in lieu of hello, her accent a tad thicker as if to make a point, before turning back to Costia, “It doesn’t even look like you lived half your life in the city.”

The warmth that comes from Costia is almost enough to ground her -  _ almost _ \- and Lexa climbs down from the stool to greet her model, “You do look nice, Clarke.”

It might have been the makeup Clarke is wearing, too light compared to what she’s worn to the engagement party, but Lexa can almost swear she sees her blush. “Thanks. It’s all Costia’s handiwork,” Clarke says, half dismissing the compliment as she smooths down her dress, “She almost fainted when I said I wanted to wear pants and heels.”

“Oh, now you’re just being dramatic,” Costia waves her away, but Lexa knows her fiancée well enough to smile at the idea of how she reacted. “But that just wouldn’t do in a  _ farm _ , Clarke.”

She does have a point - the boho style fits the theme a lot better than pants and heels - but before Lexa can say anything, Astrid sets down a brown bag and two to-go cups of coffee in front of her. “Here you go, honey. Clarke, make sure she eats and drink all her coffee. There’s one for you as well,” she says sternly, glaring at both Clarke and Lexa, who simply smiles. Astrid is always saying she’s too thin. “Costia, sweetie, do you mind getting started on the fillings? We’re behind schedule with this crowd here.”

Astrid hurries to the kitchen to bring out more orders and Costia half shouts after her, “ _ Sure, mama _ ”. Leaning in, she presses a quick kiss to Lexa’s lips before reaching over the counter to grab her apron, tying it up as she speaks and walks away, “Y’all have a nice shoot and send Anya my love, tell her I can’t wait to see the engagement pictures.”

Then, finally, it’s just her and Clarke.

Lexa grabs their coffee and biscuits, the smell wafting from it almost enough to quell the goddamn butterflies in her stomach. “You’re ready to go?”

Clarke nods, clutching the strap on her messenger bag that also looks suspiciously like one of Costia’s, and they walk out the bakery. The moment plays in the edge of being awkward but Lexa can’t think of anything to say - she wants to talk to Clarke, wants to ask her about her day, wants to know if it’s easy for her to sleep at night, but it’s hardly a casual conversation. 

Instead, she settles for the silence.

They climb in the truck and Lexa hands Clarke her coffee, settles her on the cup holder, puts the paper bag in the back of the passenger seat along with her camera. Then she grabs her phone and sends a text to Anya, letting her know they’re leaving now and should be at the farm within half an hour. Anya didn’t seem to mind much when Lexa told her Clarke was going instead of Costia, which only added power to the hand squeezing her chest - she’s making a big deal out of  _ nothing _ .

Turning the engine on, pulling the truck away from the curb, out of town and into the road, Lexa can’t help the flashbacks that flood her mind from when they were strangers to each other, riding in the same truck, down the same road. It all had seemed easier back then. Lexa was just being friendly with a stranger in need, someone she’d never see again, nothing more to it. But she did see Clarke again, and again, and  _ again _ , until her heart didn’t quite see her as a stranger anymore.

Pleading to the logical side of her, Lexa tells herself there’s no such thing as love at first sight. There just  _ isn’t _ . 

And the sooner she realizes this infatuation has no place in her life, the better off she is.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” Clarke’s voice breaks through the silence after quite a few minutes and Lexa startles, nearly jumping out of her skin, taking a moment to process her words. When she does, it’s like her stomach is trying to digest itself.

Swallowing past the lump that found home in her throat, Lexa glances at Clarke before turning her eyes back to the road, shifting gears as they come near a patch filled with potholes. Only after they get through it is that Lexa finds her voice, “I have nothing against you, Clarke.”

Clarke scoffs at that and rolls her eyes so far back that, in that moment, no one could have mistaken her for a Southern girl - that kind of attitude only comes with city life. “ _ Please _ . I can hear the contempt in the way you say my name.”  _ Contempt _ ? Is that what Clarke sees when Lexa says her name? “You tolerate me for Costia’s sake and that’s it.”

It takes Lexa a moment to find her breath again, peeling her eyes from the road to look at Clarke. She’s been trying so hard to quiet her heart that she didn’t realize how she might have looked from the outside.  _ Contempt  _ seems too strong of a word, but Clarke holds her gaze, forcing an answer out of her, “That’s hardly the truth.”

“I could be seeing things, but something shifted since you gave me a ride into town,” Clarke says, turning to look at Lexa more fully. Lexa can’t do much more than stare ahead and swerve away from the largest potholes, gritting her teeth to keep words from spilling out, “It’s been a month and I have seen more kindness to you in that drive than ever since. What was that, then?”

Her guard had been down that day - she had just gotten engaged to the love of her life, what could possibly ruin that? For a brief moment, she let her walls down and Clarke smashed right through them without her noticing. Instead of saying any of that, Lexa shrugs. “Southern hospitality, I guess. We’re all polite to strangers walking miles in heels.”

“Touché,” Clarke tips an invisible hat towards Lexa and rolls down the window, the wind coming in along with dirt and a smell very particular to farms. Lexa hadn’t realized how warm she felt until the cool breeze hit her, “But that hospitality goes away when you get to know said stranger?”

It’s hard to keep her chest from caving in a little bit. “Do you think I’m inhospitable with you?”

“No,” Clarke waves her off, propping one foot up on the seat and leaning her elbow on her knee, narrowing her eyes at Lexa, “You just look like you’d rather eat live slugs than be near me most of the time.”

She doesn’t realize she’s being made fun of for a full minute, because that was as far from the truth as possible - but if eating live slugs meant she’d get to stop feeling whatever seems to be blooming in her chest, she’d give it a try. But then Clarke smiles at her. 

“Mockery is not the product of a strong mind, Clarke,” Lexa says in a reproachful tone, despite the smile that tugs at the corner of her lips. Clarke rolls her eyes more playfully and looks outside, taking in the corn fields that go up to the roadside. Lexa thinks the words over in her mind, making sure they’re the right ones before disrupting the silence, “I do not dislike you. It’s just been a shift in what I was used to, that’s all.”

It’s as close to the truth as she can get, as she can let herself believe.

“Does it bother you? That I spend time with Costia?” Clarke asks in a soft tone, her brow furrowing, like the thought is only now occurring to her. It hasn’t occurred to Lexa either.

“No,” Lexa is quick to dismiss, shaking her head as she makes a sharper curve, “You were friends before and you’re reconnecting, there’s nothing to it.”

Clarke lets out an exasperated sigh, “Then what is it?”

Lexa grips the wheel a bit tighter, hoping that Clarke would just drop it. She doesn’t like being called out like this, and definitely not for something she  _ knows _ she’s in the wrong. Because after all, Clarke isn’t the one to blame here. And neither is Costia, who just wants her fiancée to get along with her childhood friend.  _ She _ is to blame and that drips bitterly in her throat.

But Clarke is staring at her, can probably see the way her knuckles flash white for no apparent reason, how her throat bobs up and down as she tries to swallow past the lump still lodged in there. She wants an answer, but Lexa can’t really tell her that her mere presence makes her stomach lurch - and not in a bad way.

Taking in a deep breath, Lexa focuses on the road ahead like it  _ isn’t _ the umpteenth time she’s driven down the same path. “I don’t know what to tell you, Clarke,” she says, because she really, truly doesn’t know how to explain any of her behavior to her. She doesn’t even know how to explain it to herself.

“I need to know if I’m being selfish, because apparently I have a tendency to do that,” Clarke lets out along with a click of her tongue. Lexa wonders who said that to her, what happened for her to even consider that, but she keeps her mouth shut as Clarke keeps going, “I want us to be friends, and not just for Costia’s sake.” Clarke looks away from her, staring at the road rolling out in front of them for miles on end, her eyes glossing over. Her voice is tiny when she speaks again, “God knows I could use some friends in this town.”

It breaks Lexa a little, to know she’s the one responsible to put that look in Clarke’s face.

There’s more to her than what meets the eye, Lexa would have to be blind not to see that. And right now, with that single sentence, is a glimpse at the layers she has within her that Clarke allowed Lexa to see. She wants to ask, but it’s hard to find the words when they were  _ just _ discussing how much Lexa really despises her - she knows she can put a mask when she wants to hide her feelings, she’s learned it a long while ago, but it never occurred to her she might be the one burned by it.

Clarke could use some friends in this town.  _ Friends _ \- not a bitter acquaintance who keeps her distance for the sake of not getting herself hurt.

If that what it takes to get to know Clarke, so be it.

After a few minutes - certainly a lot more than what’s polite, considering the way Clarke is all but squirming in her seat - Lexa looks at her and nods, once, “Consider me a friend, then.” There’s a finality in her voice that she herself doesn’t recognize, like she’s sealing an important deal that she can’t back away from.

Clarke perks up at that, letting her leg fall back down as she narrows her eyes at Lexa, studying her face. Whatever she sees in it, and Lexa prays that it isn’t more than she should, seems to be enough for now. “No more awkwardness?” 

The hope in her voice makes Lexa smile, because it  _ has _ been a lot awkward with them, be it when they’re struggling through small talk at the bakery or when they’re slow dancing at her engagement party. “I can’t promise you that. But I’ll try.”

“It’s all I’m asking.” Clarke shrugs, like it’s the minimum to ask from a friend, not knowing it’s almost more than Lexa can handle. But she seems determined to put the subject to rest, waiting only a few moments before changing the direction of the conversation completely, “Where are we going, anyway?”

“A farm,” Lexa says, shortly. But she remembers her promise and adds, almost in the same breath, “Twenty miles or so from town. They have a beautiful cotton plantation that looks incredible in the sunset.”

This is what friends do, isn’t it? They talk. They delve in conversations that are nothing if not ordinary, turning it into something more, going the extra mile to keep it going. 

Lexa can do that.

Clarke nods at her, completely brushing away the uncomfortable feeling from their previous topic as she crosses her legs under her. Does she ever sit properly? “Do you have any tips for first time models?” Clarke asks and it gives Lexa pause. She never really thought about it, she mostly let Costia do whatever she felt like doing and snapped pictures until her memory card was full. But before she can answer, Clarke adds, “I don’t think I’ve ever got professional pictures taken. Unless you count graduations, which is just plain awful.”

“I’m hardly a professional, Clarke,” Lexa says, taking an extra care to say her name a little softer. It tickles her tongue, caresses her lips, burns her ears.

She doesn’t know whether or not she should be thankful when Clarke doesn’t seem to notice it.

“But you’re not Wells with his phone either. And believe me, his pictures of me in front of every graffiti wall he finds don’t count,” Clarke says in a carefree way that tells Lexa she’s earned the right to talk about this  _ Wells _ like this.

Still, Lexa frowns, glances at her quickly before making a left in an intersection, going from gravel to dirt roads, “Wells?”

“Oh, he’s my soulmate.” The word takes Lexa completely by surprise and she shoots a look at Clarke before she can help it, earning a chuckle from her, “He’s my best friend. My only true friend in Chicago, I guess,” Clarke explains in a fond voice that makes it clear that she misses him a lot, “We met when I moved from Polis and we’ve been pretty inseparable ever since.”

“It’s a long time to remain friends with someone,” Lexa says when there’s a short lull in conversation, knowing very well life can get in the way or both people can just grow apart. She and Anya go back over a decade and  _ that _ is already hard to keep up, even with them living in such small towns. “You must miss him a lot, after moving back.”

“Yeah, I do,” Clarke admits with a bittersweet smile. “I’ve actually convinced him to move down here for a few months to help me keep sane.”

Lexa wonders for a moment what exactly this Wells guy works with that he can just drop it for months at a time to move to a town with little to no job opportunities. Instead, she grits her teeth, lets the fire within her chest rise and fall with each breath and smirks at Clarke, teasing, “Am I really that bad?”

She feels adrenaline rushing through her, spiking more than it had the right to. It’s  _ nothing _ , but it feels dangerous and irresistible.

The laughter the gets from Clarke is enough to make her blood pump faster. “Oh, you  _ are _ ,” Clarke answers, getting in on the joke, “But I guess you’re not hopeless after all.”

Lexa bites her lip to keep her smile at bay, because she doesn’t quite have the right to feel that giddiness bubbling in her chest.

She does her best to frown and keep a serious face as she makes a left at the farm gates that have been left ajar, pretending she’s focusing on the bumpy path they need to drive down like it isn’t somewhere she’d been before. But it’s a good of a buffer as any as they get near a SUV parked under the shadow of a mango tree, two figures leaning against its side.

Clarke climbs out the truck as soon as they’re parked, slamming the door shut with a little more force than she means to when a sudden burst of wind finds its way towards them and Lexa wishes she had her camera at the ready. Because Clarke expression is something she finds herself wanting to immortalize - her eyes widen, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline, and her bottom lip jolts downwards in an  _ “oops _ ” expression worthy of a five year old after breaking something.

The wind blows her hair on her face, before she turns around and runs her fingers through her locks. And just like that, the moment is gone. The pang in Lexa’s chest, however, isn’t so easily dismissed.

Lexa takes her time reaching out to the small space behind the passenger seat and grabbing her camera bag. With a deep breath and a shake of her head to free her mind from the thoughts clinging to it, she tries to convince herself she’s only falling into her photographer mode, trying to figure out the best angles of her model already. There’s nothing more to it.

She hears a  _ “Clarke! _ ” and a laugh as she walks around her truck, finding Clarke being brought into a hug, her hands coming up after a moment to tap lightly on the arms circling her as she chuckles out a  _ “hey, Raven _ ,” clearly not a big fan of the southern greeting.

They know each other, that much is clear, and Lexa tries to remember if they’ve met at the engagement party, but she can’t quite remember Clarke talking to many people. But Clarke has been living in Polis for over a month now, it’s only a matter of time before she get to know everyone.

“I don’t think you’ve met Anya,” Raven says once they spring apart, turning to her girlfriend, who’s studying Clarke with narrowed eyes.

Anya untangles her right arm from her camera strap and reaches out her hand to shake Clarke’s - who looks much more comfortable with this than a hug, “I took your picture when you were dancing with Scumbag Finn, but we weren’t introduced.”

Lexa gets to the group with a smirk on her face at the nickname she promised herself she wouldn’t use, because it’s hardly polite, but one that describes the guy nonetheless. She reaches Raven’s extended arm and gives her a half hug, kissing her cheek before walking towards Anya, who doesn’t take her eyes off of Clarke.

“Scumbag Finn?” Clarke asks, looking to Raven for an answer when Anya simply shrugs and bumps her shoulder against Lexa in lieu of a hello. 

“Anya is still mad because he broke my heart like ten years ago,” Raven rolls her eyes in a dramatic way, turning to smirk at Anya. Lexa knows Anya has been protective of Raven, in her own little way, since way before they got together. And if there’s someone who’s willing to die with her grudges, it’s Anya. But Raven seems like she’s done talking about Finn and turns to take Clarke in, “But anyway, I love your dress.”

Clarke runs her hands down the front of her boho dress, “It’s Costia’s, actually.” The mention of Costia seems to weigh down on Lexa’s stomach, but she still watches as Clarke smiles at Raven, “She got me all camera ready.”

“You’re lucky because that one won’t help me at all,” Raven grunts, pointing at her mostly bare face. Raven looks beautiful, with her hair cascading down her shoulder, a lavender dress hugging her form and rolling down on ruffles until the floor. She barely needs any makeup.

“Excuse me, I’m only the photographer,” Anya adds with a dismissive wave of her hand as she flips through the pictures already in her camera.

“Whatever,” Raven bites back with an attitude, but from the tilt in Anya’s lips, it’s more teasing than anything else. Then she turns to Clarke, “Help me?”

Clarke falls into step with Raven, both of them walking to the front of the car where there’s an array of assorted bits and pieces of makeup, some on top of the hood, some in an open makeup bag. Raven leans against the bumper, taking the weight out of her bad leg and handing Clarke a mirror for her to hold. 

When Clarke ventures a look towards them, she catches Lexa staring. 

She gives her a little smirk, which is more than enough for Lexa to stumble on her own feet, nearly dropping the very expensive lenses she had just taken out of her camera bag. Averting her gaze in a surprising speed and praying to whoever is listening for her entire face to remain a few shades lighter than blazing red, Lexa adjusts her grip on the lenses, starting to unscrew the cap with a laser sharp focus.

Still, with nothing much than a soft breeze and the occasional chirping of birds to distract her, her ears pick up the conversation happening a few feet from her. As much as she tries  _ not _ to eavesdrop, she overhears Raven inviting Clarke for the game next Friday - the same game she and Costia are going to. It seems like no matter how much she tries to keep her distance from Clarke, the goddamn universes just conspires for them to be at the same place, at the same time.

“Dude,” Anya calls her in a pointed, annoyed voice, looking like she’d slap Lexa over the head if she weren’t holding two lenses in one hand and her camera in another, “Do you mind paying attention to me?”

Lexa frowns at herself, wondering when she had gotten distracted to the point of not hearing Anya talk at all. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“I was asking if you want to start with portraits,” Anya repeats herself, sliding the back door open and throwing the two lenses back in a bag with three others. “I think I brought too many lenses and I can’t choose.”

“I only brought my 50mm, so I guess portraits, yeah,” Lexa says in what she figures is a convincing tone, her heart twisting and turning in her chest as she locks her lenses in place. She barely knows how she’ll survive today, if the mere sight of Clarke throwing her head back to get her hair out of the way makes her want to walk over there and tuck it behind her eat. The thought of having to spend an entire evening with her  _ and _ Costia, with booze flowing freely and limited space to move around, sends a shiver down her spine.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Anya snaps, this time juggling her camera in one hand and shoving Lexa’s shoulder.

“There’s nothing wrong, Anya,” Lexa mumbles, taking a step back to steady herself. She halfheartedly tells Anya to get the same lenses that she’s using, which is their go-to ones whenever they’re shooting models and not landscape anyway, and watches her work it into place with a grumpy face. Taking a deep breath, Lexa tries an explanation, “It’s work, I guess. It’s been so busy I had to go in today and my mind is still in it.” 

Anya looks up a few moments after Lexa lets her eyes wander back to Clarke again, and she forces them back down just in time to see brown eyes rolling so far back she sees only the white of them for a moment. Because it’s bullshit, and Anya can tell that much. “Where’s Costia?”

“She had to help her mom with an order for tomorrow morning and couldn’t take the afternoon off.” Talking about Costia makes something inside Lexa snap. She purses her lips, wondering how this would be if her fiancée was here instead of the woman- instead of Clarke.

Anya finishes adjusting her lenses, closes the bag in her car and slides the door shut with enough force for Raven to shout in protest and something about almost sticking the whole mascara applier in her eye. “We could have rescheduled it.”

Sighing loudly and more tiredly than she had intended to, Lexa gives her camera for Anya to hold for a moment, pulls her hair over one shoulder and starts braiding it in a loose, messy way. It’s easy, it keeps it out of her way when she’s shooting and, for now, it gives her something to do with her hands. “I told her that, but she insisted I brought Clarke instead.”

Anya hums instead of dignifying her with a proper answer and Lexa settles herself into weaving her hair into a braid, her eyes drifting up to watch Clarke apply lipstick to Raven’s lips, removing the excess around the corner with her pinky finger before going in for another layer.

“That’s not a good sign,” Anya clicks her tongue, her gaze following Lexa’s for a moment.

“She’s just busy, Anya,” Lexa snaps, finishing off her braid before she runs out of hair, tying the tips with the hairband she keeps on her wrist. It’s only after she says it that she realizes Anya might not have been talking about Costia at all. But she stays in that line of thought - it’s a lot easier than the alternative. “Besides, we have probably a thousand of pictures of Costia combined. It’ll be good to have a new model.”

“Whatever you say,” Anya dismisses her, but Lexa doesn’t indulge her dream of this being the end of it. For now, she turns her camera on and stands aside, taking a picture of Raven and Clarke in the distance - so she can adjust her settings, that’s  _ all _ \- as Anya shouts at them, “Y’all about ready?”

“Yeah!”

Lexa wraps the camera strap twice around her forearm, with more care than she usually did so, and walks lazily behind Anya, tapping to open the picture she just took. It’s too bright and the background is sharper than she wants it, so she fiddles with the settings until it’s more or less what she thinks she’ll need. Then she turns to the side, sees Clarke walking towards her, and snaps another picture.

So she can make sure her settings are the right ones.

That’s all.

She opens it again and she’s happy with the results - it’s just underexposed enough that she can bring the details out once she’s editing it and Clarke is in sharp focus when nothing else is. Lexa zooms in on her face, taking in the way her profile cuts through the blurred background, a mess of green behind her as her hair floats to her face in the light breeze, her expression almost serious, like she has just stopped laughing at something off frame.

“Have we started already?” Clarke asks from somewhere beside Lexa, looking over her shoulder to get a peek at the photograph. It’s not like she comes out of nowhere, but suddenly, Lexa feels herself being filled with Clarke from every angle, every possible sensation. She’s close enough that Lexa can smell the perfume she’s wearing, can feel the heat coming out of her body, has to grit her jaw against the touch of blonde curls against her neck.

If Lexa feels her heart picking up speed and hammering against her ribcage, she tells herself Clarke spooked her, nothing else to it.

“Oh, no, not really,” Lexa says, her voice constricted by the lump in her throat, clicking out of the picture so only her settings show, as to prove her point, “I was just adjusting my settings.”

“Can you go back for a sec? To the picture.” Clarke pauses mid step and Lexa pauses with her, clicking back so the photograph comes into the screen and holds her camera with both hands, tilting it for Clarke to see. “Hey, I look  _ good _ in that. Can I have it?”

Lexa blinks. “Yes,” her voice comes out in a breathy way, something little more than a whisper. She clears her throat and nods, once, taking a step to the side so they can have some space between them, “Yes, I’ll run them through editing and then I’ll send them to you. Or, if you can get me a memory stick, that would be easier.”

“Sure. What store even sells something as high tech as memory stick in this town?” Clarke asks, more teasing than anything, and looks up at Anya and Raven. They’ve fallen slightly behind, so they start walking again, following them to where they’ll start shooting.

“You know that little grocery store in the corner of the drugstore?” Lexa starts, trying to explain what seems like a foreign concept for Clarke. It’s weird to even call it a grocery store, since everyone in town calls the place by the name of the first owner, who died over fifteen years ago. “It’s the one that has three doors, one for furniture, another one with bags of dog food near the door and a third that opens to their stationery place?”

“ _ That’s _ a grocery store?” Clarke sounds appalled and Lexa doesn’t quite blame her. It does sell food, but you need to ask for what you want at the counter. But there aren’t many places one can buy a mattress, a baby chick, pliers  _ and _ cookies.

Lexa feels the corner of her lips tilting up for a moment, before to reins it in, “Somewhat. But you can find memory sticks in their stationery section. Only two gigs ones, but that should be more than enough.”

“How do you people  _ live _ ?” Clarke sounds nothing short of outraged, her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. The place is eccentric, to put it mildly, but it gives the town character. Lexa decides not to tell Clarke she needs to drive forty miles if anything electronic of hers ever breaks and needs fixing.

“Can y’all walk faster than a tot, please? I’m really trying to make the most of the day, here,” Anya shouts over her shoulder, breaking the moment completely, and they half jog to catch up with them.

They don’t have to walk much before they find themselves in what’s pretty much a dream location. It’s not that it’s gorgeous and breathtaking, because it’s not. It’s pretty plain with its overgrown grass and decaying fence. But it’s  _ versatile _ . It has a cotton plantation to one side, a patch of grass and turned soil that will probably be used to plant something soon enough, and trees so tightly packed they can’t really walk through on the other side.

Raven suggests they photograph her first, for Clarke to get a feel of things since she’s never modeled before. She makes it sound so professional that Lexa raises her camera to her face to hide her amusement - they’re just two women with fancy cameras taking photographs to wind down from the work week, nothing much more than that. 

But they do start with Raven, placed in the largest portion of the overgrown lawn, her back to the shortest part of woods so they can use that as a background and get some of the sky into frame as well. Lexa lets Anya command her poses at first, telling her to hold her arm this way or that, to move her hair, to look down, look up. Then she sits down on the grass at Lexa’s request, adjusts the ruffles of her dress all around her, and they take more pictures of Raven sitting and posing this way and that way, leaning back, leaning forward. 

It’s a choreographed dance, because they’ve done this with Raven so often that she pretty much knows what to expect already.

By the time Lexa is leaning on top of Raven at such an awkward angle that Anya has to hold her shoulders to keep her from falling down, Raven demands a break. Lexa thanks her and Raven dismisses her with a laugh, but they all know they pushed a little too hard when Raven grips her thigh and walks to the fence so she can sit with her back to it.

Lexa takes a deep breath in, letting the smell of earth and trees calm her down as she waves Clarke over. She seems bored, to put it politely. Lexa watches her as she pushes away from the tree she had been leaning against and walks towards them, her phone clutched in her hand.

Half pretending to be checking the pictures she just took, Lexa watches Clarke pause halfway through the grass, turn her back to the afternoon sun and shoot another text, her thumbs flying on the screen, before getting to them. She tosses it from one hand to the other, looking around as if she’s just realized she has no pockets and needs a place to put it.

“I can keep it, if you’d like,” Lexa tries, foregoing her pretense all at once and shielding her eyes against the sun to look at Clarke, who shrugs, mumbles her thanks and hands Lexa the phone for her to slip it in her back pocket.

It buzzes almost immediately.

She assumes Clarke has said goodbye to whoever she’s texting, telling them she’s busy at the moment, so Lexa doesn’t ask if she wants to answer it. 

Instead, she focuses on Anya positioning Clarke with an almost military precision - she has an incredible eye for photographs, but Anya  _ really _ needs to work on her manners. She settles Clarke a few feet into the field and tells her to relax and be herself, which is about as helpful as throwing a log into an unlit fire. 

But Clarke takes a deep breath and adjusts her hair, throwing it back to make it bouncier. 

That’s the first picture Lexa takes.

She swallows past the lump in her throat and opens the picture, trying see if she needs to adjust her settings to the changing sun - soon, she’ll need to stop using it as her only excuse, even if it’s just to herself because it’s hardly believable at this point. The exposure is good, so Lexa takes in the picture itself. The cotton balls closest to her have become blurred, as well as the ones in the far back, but Clarke is in sharp focus, her hair flying across her face, hand still stuck in the locks, eyes half closed, her face up towards the sun.

Clarke looks breathtaking. 

_ The picture has a good composition _ , Lexa corrects her own thoughts, flipping back to the viewfinder and bringing it to her face again, either to hide her gritted teeth or to actually get down to the shoot, she isn’t sure. But she forces herself to look at this as objectively as she can, positioning Clarke in the middle of the grid and adjusting the focus whenever needed.

But that’s exactly in what Lexa finds the most beauty when it comes to photography. The  _ gut feeling _ that tells her if a picture is good or not, the instinct she has to adjust this setting or another, never really knowing what made her change it, or change the angle, or the location. She enjoys the unpredictability of it. The weather can change, the model can decide they’re not into it anymore, her own mood can interfere with it - and she has to go with it, adapt quickly to what the world throws at her to make the most of a photo session.

It’s the opposite of what she has working in the city hall, where every little thing needs to be accounted for and the most unpredictable thing that happens is never knowing if whoever made the coffee put too much sugar in it.

Fighting with herself to find a middle ground between giving herself into the moment and saving her own heart the ache, Lexa shoots a few more pictures to the sound of Anya’s  _ “look down, now look up. turn a bit for me? look at the sun and close your eyes. good, now again. _ ” 

When Clarke’s phone buzzes five times within a minute, Lexa steps back. She flips through the pictures and there’s something  _ off _ about them. It takes her a good three looks through all of them to figure out what’s wrong - Clarke is uncomfortable. It’s not much to notice at first, her smile reaches her eyes and she photographs very well. But she’s uncomfortable.

Anya seems to notice it as well, because she marches right out of the field after saying something to Clarke. “I’m gonna check in on Raven. You figure out why the fuck she looks like she has a stick up her ass,” Anya hisses, pointing to herself, then poking Lexa’s chest and turning her thumb to Clarke, as if to make sure Lexa understands her, before saying through gritted teeth, “I fucking miss Costia.”

The cursing sounds odd to Lexa’s ears - in the south, she hears a  _ lot _ of variations, but hardly ever the actual words for them, which only proves just how exasperated Anya is. She makes her way through the cotton plants, watching the way Clarke seems to almost twitch under the sun.

“Hi,” Lexa says when she’s close enough, catching Clarke’s attention, who doesn’t do much more than stare at her, blankly, “What’s wrong?”

The muscles in her jaw move gently as Clarke grits her teeth and purses her lips, looking away from Lexa and focusing on a cotton ball near her, “There’s nothing wrong.”

“You seem…” She looks for the right words, taking Clarke in, “Annoyed, I guess.”

Clarke rolls her eyes as if to prove Lexa’s point, and straightens up, turns her neck from one side to the other, working out a kink. “Maybe I’m not cut out for the whole model thing,” Clarke says with so much conviction that Lexa might have believed her, if she didn’t have prove otherwise. Then she looks at Lexa, her eyes narrowed, “Anya is a real peace, you know that?”

Lexa fights a smile that turns into an amused smirk, because she does know that Anya can be awful when things aren’t going her way. But there’s something else she wants to address, “You really think you’re not doing an incredible job? Because the pictures I have say otherwise.”

Closing the distance between then and turning until they’re shoulder to shoulder, their backs to the sun so they can see the screen in front of her, Lexa shows her the pictures. There are a handful of pictures for each pose and Lexa pauses on her favorite ones a little longer, so Clarke can take it in.

She pauses the longest in one where Clarke has the wind on her back, blowing her dress slightly, her hair covering part of her face, her eyes almost shining in the sun. Lexa knows exactly what she’ll do with this picture once she gets to editing it - mute the greens, bring out the blue in Clarke’s eyes as well as the earthy tones, maybe bring more light to it. It’ll look nothing short of ethereal.

Rapidly skipping over the ones Clarke doesn’t quite look so comfortable, Lexa shows her everything before turning to her, “So, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

They’re so close Lexa can almost feel the afternoon sun bouncing off Clarke’s skin, the sky reflected in her eyes as she pouts slightly, considering if she should tell her after all or just suck it up.

After a moment, Lexa  _ sees _ Clarke shivering before bending down to swat at something on her leg. “Fucking cotton is irritating my skin,” she nearly cries out, running her palms on her thighs where the dried up cotton leaves insist on tickling her.

Lexa gasps when she looks down and sees the angry marks Clarke’s nails left on her fair skin,  _ “Clarke! _ ” she winces at the sight as Clarke scratches her leg again, hardly keeping the reproach from her voice, “This is the kind of thing you tell us about.”

Clarke seems too busy trying to keep herself from scratching her leg raw to answer, but when she does, her voice is tiny, almost embarrassed, “I didn’t want to seem like I can’t handle being near plants. I get enough jokes about being a city girl as it is.”

It pains her that Clarke thinks she’d be one of the people making fun of her for no reason other than having lived somewhere else. “There’s not liking plants and then there’s having an allergic reaction to one,” Lexa scolds her, knowing very well her southern accent just leaks through her words - it does that whenever her emotions get the best of her and the years of training in college just float away, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“What about your pictures?” Clarke asks, sounding genuinely worried about Lexa not getting the right picture, rooting her feet to the ground. 

Lexa places her palm on the small of Clarke’s back, guiding her out of the cotton field with a little more effort than she thought she’d have to use. “We’ll get it somewhere else,” Lexa says it dismissively as they break away from the field and into open air, looking down to see the damage on Clarke’s legs - the nail marks are fading, leaving behind little red spots and fine hair on edge, “Do you need something for your legs?”

She’s been running through fields since she were a tot, has inhaled more than her fair share of pollen and been on one too many fights against bugs. But Lexa still remembers how agonizing the itching can be, how it seems to come from deep within her belly and spread all over her body until she’s nearly going insane. 

That’s the only reason why she’s standing so close to Clarke, her hand still splayed on the small of her back, their skin brushing with every breath.

“No, I’m okay,” Clarke puts on a brave face for a moment, before giving into her squirming and bending down to run her palm on the back of her thigh to stop the prickling. It’ll be like that for a while if they don’t do something quick.

Murmuring for her to wait there, Lexa jogs back to where Anya now sits beside Raven, going through the pictures they took. She explains what’s happening with a quick  _ “field made her itchy _ ” as she digs through her camera bag to find a cloth meant to clean her lenses. Both Anya and Raven nod, understanding where the moodiness comes from, and hand her the bottle of water when she asks for it.

She walks back towards Clarke, motioning for her to get farther away from the cotton field and closer to the little grove on the other side. They’re both silent as Lexa pours some water on the cloth and wrings it until the excess is out, her camera hanging from her shoulders dangerously close to the water. She hands it to Clarke, who stares at it for a long moment before taking it and brushing down the length of her legs.

Lexa avoids staring at her legs and scouts the woods for somewhere to take pictures - there’s a tree stump making a clearing near them and the trees are bunched up together a little down the field, both could render great photographs. 

“Better?” Lexa asks when Clarke balances herself in one foot to get the last of it off and puts out her hand to get the cloth - now officially downgraded to a rag - before resting it on top of the water bottle and putting it on the ground.

“Much,” Clarke says, the lightness in her voice proving that she truly means it. If Lexa’s stomach drops a few inches when Clarke shoots her a thankful smile, she simply presses her lips together and blames it on her lunch. “Where to now?”

Pointing to the thicker part of the grove, Lexa leads them down a more or less beaten path so the tall grass doesn’t cause more damage to Clarke’s legs. Lexa waits for Clarke to take in her surroundings and gets her camera once again, changing the settings for a moodier photography now that they’re out of the direct sunlight. 

She looks up just in time to see Clarke running her fingers through her hair, tossing it back and away from her face, pressing it down so it stays that way. Lexa finds her reflections too slow to capture the image - a good candid, she tells herself, that’s why she wants to take a picture, that’s all - but Clarke catches her staring.

“Um, could you take three steps that way and turn to me?” Lexa says quickly, trying to recover and only barely making it. She snaps a few shots and looks at them to check the exposure, only to find Clarke has messed her hair up more than anything. Fighting to keep her grin at the lock sticking up hidden, Lexa turns to Clarke, gesturing towards her own head, “Do you mind if I- if I fix your hair?”

Clarke beckons her over, taking a few steps towards her as well, and Lexa puts her camera strap around her neck, wipes her palms on her thigh as discreetly as she can manage, takes a sharp breath in. 

When Lexa finds herself well within Clarke’s personal space, her hand halfway up to blonde hair, a little voice inside her head reminds her that Clarke could very well fix her own hair. They have a mirror somewhere within Anya’s bag, Lexa could flip her camera visor and use it as a mirror. Hell, even the  _ two _ phones on her pockets would make do in a pinch. 

But she shoves it down, allows herself to believe in her own lies.

Focusing only on the task at hand, Lexa parts the locks in the same way they were before, bringing most of Clarke’s hair to the side. She reaches around Clarke to swipe all her curls off one shoulder and letting half of it fall down her back, half cascade over her shoulder. Lexa tries to look at it objectively, looking out for any flyaway hair and anything out of place - she doesn’t quite manage it, not when the sun finds its way past her to shine in a way that turns the blonde of her hair almost golden, not when they’re so close Lexa can feel her breath hitting her cheek.

As if on an afterthought, Lexa runs her fingers through her hair, tucking it lightly behind Clarke’s ear to frame her face better.

She can  _ hear _ Clarke’s next intake of breath.

For a moment, for a godforsaken moment, Lexa lowers her gaze. The slightest shift from one foot to the other lets the sun shine past Lexa and find Clarke’s eyes, turning them into magnets that pull Lexa in, a pull stronger than her good sense can fight. Her eyes are darker outside in the sun than they are inside under warm fairy lights - the blue turns royal as it fights the offending sunlight, pupils turning pinhead sized. There are silver rivers running through the blue, shining as if they themselves are casting light, and Lexa wonders why she never noticed them before.

Clarke blinks and tilts her head to the side so she can hide from the sun, and Lexa snaps back to reality. She swallows past the lump in her throat that wasn’t there a moment ago, willing her breath to even out, and tilts her jaw to the side, takes a wide step back under the excuse of admiring her handiwork.

“All done,” Lexa strains to say, her voice breaking halfway through the short sentence. She clears her throat as she turns her attention back to her camera for a moment, clicking a random button to bring it back to life. It takes Lexa a moment to find her bearings again, and maybe a moment too long. Then she looks at Clarke again, hoping to whatever gods are listening to keep her voice steady, “Could you stand in between those two trees, cross one arm around your middle and let the breeze blow your skirt back a bit?”

Nodding and promptly putting more distance in between them, Clarke does as she’s told. Lexa takes a deep breath and positions herself in front of Clarke, finding her shot easily enough now that the fog is leaving her brain. 

Once she’s comfortable and not itchy, Clarke is a whole different model.

Lexa crouches down to get a different angle, scoots over for a side shot, shouts out different instructions that Clarke follows without any trouble. She tries her hand on a few different things, asking Clarke to pull down a leafy branch to frame her face, getting close and personal once more to find the finer details - that’s all. 

If she finds herself noticing how her eyes seem to mimic her surroundings and turn just a couple shades greener than when out in the sun, Lexa forces herself to believe she’s simply a detail oriented photographer.

Anya joins them once they walk over to the little tree stump Lexa had her eye on, and Lexa feels like she can breathe again - it’s not just the two of them anymore. Lexa positions Clarke easily enough, taking just an extra moment to adjust her skit before stepping back and letting Anya direct her movements. 

The soft colors from the dress have a stark contrast against the dark woods and Clarke is all light - her hair, her fair skin, her long exposed legs crossing over at the ankles as leans on her thighs and she looks away from them. It’s a beautiful composition and it’s easy for Lexa to pretend she’s falling in love with photography all over again.

The sun is slowly but surely going down by the time Anya announces she has enough shots and thanks Clarke for being a good sport, turning around to check her latest pictures. Lexa thanks her as well, managing to work up a sincere smile - it has been a good photoshoot and definitely a productive afternoon, it’s not Clarke’s fault that Costia couldn’t come.

Clarke dusts herself off with an urgency that only a city girl could muster and walks over to them. “Are we done for the day?” she asks and Anya hums in agreement, skipping past the pictures faster than anyone else could. Then Clarke turns to Lexa, “Can I have my phone?”

Pulling it out of her pocket, Lexa hands her phone back to her. It has stopped buzzing so constantly in the last hour or so, which definitely helped her focus, but Clarke still has too many notifications to check. She watches Clarke putting a small distance between them, running her fingers through her hair and pushing it away from her face as she scrolls through her phone, tapping one thing or another to answer.

“She’s gotten a lot better after you got her out of the cotton field,” Anya says, half to Lexa, half to herself. “Man, I wanted to have taken more pictures there. Do you think you can convince her to come another day?”

“I-” Lexa stutters, turning away from Clarke and staring at Anya, trying and failing to understand when she’s given the idea that she had any say in today’s arrangement at all, “Why would I be able to convince her?”

“Well, she seems to like you a lot more than me,” Anya points out, which isn’t exactly a lie. But Clarke hasn’t even been around Anya long enough for her to get any idea of who she is. For a moment, Lexa allows herself to imagine what that would be like, Anya and Clarke talking over beers, getting to know each other in an easy going place. They might have the chance to do just that at the game next Friday. “Or just get Costia to talk to her into coming again. Maybe wearing pants this time, so we can get those shots.”

The mention of Costia is enough to make Lexa’s inside shrivel up, but she nods, once, “Uh, sure. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Great. Listen, do you want more shots?” Anya asks, hanging her camera on her shoulder and pointing to Raven, who’s bunched her dress up to her thighs and is currently muttering angrily at a game on her phone, “Raven and I are going to that little stream past the trees to get some sunset ones. Her dress is too gorgeous to let it slip.”

If Costia were here, they’re absolutely tag along. Maybe Costia would strip to her underwear and dive into the water, pester Lexa until she joined her so they could swim a little ways down the river and enjoy the sunset at a spot where no one could find them. 

Taking Clarke there sounds like a betrayal bigger than she can explain, so Lexa simply shakes her head, “No, go ahead. We’ll wait here.”

“I guess we’re done anyway, so just shout if you’re done waiting and want to go,” Anya says, waving her away and not bothering insisting on the company as she walks towards her girlfriend, “Hey, Reyes, wanna make out by the river bank?”

Lexa watches them from her spot under the cool shade, taking a moment to herself before she tries to think about a small talk topic can keep Clarke and her going until Raven and Anya are back. It’s harder than it should be, coming up with small talk when that’s the last thing she wants to do.

Instead, she watches Anya finding Raven and stretching her hand for her to take and use it to hoist herself up. Anya wraps her arm around Raven’s waist, a portray of intimacy that is way beyond what they usually show, and they walk in each other’s arms towards the trees, past them, towards the river.

“Did you get any good shots?” Clarke says from somewhere behind her, too close for comfort, and Lexa jumps, her whole body tightening up in a fight or flight response. 

She’s much more inclined to take the  _ flight _ option, but instead, she turns around. “Yes, and Anya did too,” Lexa answers, wrapping the strap of her camera around her forearm as if to prove her point, “We’ll send them to you once we do some editing.”

“Okay, great,” Clarke murmurs without much enthusiasm, sounding like she doesn’t really care if she gets the photos or not. She flips her phone on her hand, tossing it from hand to hand just like she’d done before they started shooting, and Lexa can’t quite read the expression on her face.

Remembering the constant buzzing of her phone in her pocket, Lexa figures she’s probably anxious to get away from the countryside and back to the smidge of civilization they have in town. “Do you want to go home already? I can tell Anya-”

“No,” Clarke says plainly and surely, cutting Lexa mid sentence. She looks away, staring intently at the cotton field for a moment, then looks back at Lexa. Something in her gaze softens, and it’s reflected on her voice, “Not yet.”

Lexa nods, once, not really sure what to make of Clarke’s answer. It stirs something within her and Lexa realizes she’s not quite ready to go home herself. 

The setting sun stretches long and wide across the cotton fields that seem to go on forever in the golden light and they both stand side by side, watching bugs flying from one cotton button to another, the lightest breeze carrying them. 

For the first time in well over two weeks, Lexa feels at peace. 

It might be because all the work that has been piling up on her desk and weighing her down is finally all done. It might be because she’s among trees after so long stuck under fluorescent lights. It might be because she finally got some time to do something she really enjoys, after all the days fighting deadlines. 

It might have something to do with the sunset, the company. It might be something else entirely.

She turns to Clarke and allows herself to study her face for a moment. The golden hour is a beautiful moment for photography no matter where one is, but the sunsets in the South have a little extra  _ something _ \- it’s a little more vibrant, a little more golden, a little more magical than anywhere else. And it shows.

The last rays of sunshine hit Clarke’s hair and turn it liquid gold, giving her a halo that cascades down her shoulder. Her skin becomes warmer - in color, Lexa can see that, on the touch, Lexa can only assume. The gold mixes with the silver in her eyes, giving it a color Lexa doesn’t know the name for. 

For a moment, they’re dripping in magic.

“Would it be okay if I got some shots from you against the sun?” Lexa prompts out loud before she thinks the words through and Clarke looks at her, meeting her eye under the golden sunlight, before she can take them back.

“Do I have to get back in there?” Clarke grimaces, pointing to the cotton field, and Lexa can’t help the laughter that bubbles inside her at how much like a whiny four-year-old Clarke sounds. 

Shaking her head  _ no _ in answer, Lexa points to a spot a few feet away from the field after checking the sun, “You can stand there and just look at me.”

Clarke walks dutifully towards the spot, adjusting her dress, making sure it’s not crooked on the shoulders, smoothing it out, and runs her fingers through her hair. She pauses mid action and carefully slips her hand out, trying to avoid turning it into even more of a mess, letting the locks fall on their own accord. 

Gritting her teeth, Lexa averts her eyes and focuses on her camera instead, turning it back on and adjusting the settings she knows she’ll need for a good sunset photograph. It takes her a few moments and when she looks up once more, Clarke is finally done with her hair and is standing there with one arm crossed over her midsection, hugging her elbow, waiting for instructions.

Lexa snaps a picture, a quick one to make sure her settings are alright, and it’s enough to take her breath away - Clarke is looking away from her, towards the sunset, and her profile cuts sharp lines in the orange sky.

“You guys do have incredible sunsets here,” Clarke comments, her voice softer than it’s ever been when she’s spoken about Polis. She’s obviously not a fan, she’s made that crystal clear from the moment she met Lexa, but it seems like the little town is growing on her after all.

Lexa adjusts her grip on the camera, fitting Clarke and some of the cotton field in the viewfinder, ready to snap a shot. “Clarke,” Lexa starts, a grin finding its way to her lips as Clarke looks at her, “Are you, by any chance, enjoying the South?”

Clarke scoffs - Lexa snaps a picture - and looks away from her for a moment, tossing her hair in the air in scorn - she takes three more -, before putting her hands on her waist and staring at the camera - one last picture, from a different angle. “No, I am not. I just said one good thing from here. I’d still leave you for Chicago in the blink of an eye.”

Crouching down and scooting over to the side so she can capture the sunlight, Lexa teases Clarke a little more - for the sake of getting a good picture, she tells herself. “Soon enough you’ll be saying  _ y’all _ and drinking sweet tea you made from scratch.”

“Doubtful,” Clarke says, rolling her eyes too far back, but then she smiles. If she realized what Lexa is doing or she’s thinking about how the South isn’t  _ that _ bad, Lexa can’t tell.

They keep an easy conversation going, about how much better Chicago is than any cotton field in the middle of nowhere. Lexa does admit that Chicago skies can become something else entirely, and the look of  _ victory _ in Clarke’s face is immortalized with a few clicks of the camera. 

It feels easy, this part of the afternoon, with their light banter and unprompted poses.

Maybe a little  _ too  _ easy.

The sun doesn’t give them much time before it starts hiding behind low hanging clouds, casting them in an orange light that is gorgeous, but doesn’t photograph well. Lexa caps the lenses after telling Clarke she can’t capture the light anymore, and resists the urge to go through the pictures, “Do you want to go already?”

“If the option is waiting for the two love birds to be back from their make out session, yeah,” Clarke jokes, walking lazily towards Lexa. The sunset turns her hair into liquid gold, shining a light that rivals the sun itself as she moves against the breeze, her dress waving around her.

Lexa watches silently as Clarke picks her phone up from the tree stump she was sitting on a little while ago and fiddles with it, reading something on it as she runs her fingers through her hair and bundles it over one shoulder - she’s free to do it now, and she result is so awestrucking that Lexa has to grit her teeth to keep herself from reaching for her camera again.

Mumbling something similar to “I’ll let them know we’re leaving” in a way that she can hardly be sure if Clarke heard or understood her, Lexa leaves her to it and focuses on covering the short distance between the cotton field and the river.

It’s not an unfamiliar path, so she lets herself be guided by the sounds of running water and turns her camera back on. She flips through the latest pictures, telling herself she’s just checking the white balance on it - which is a pretty convincing lie, but doesn’t settle the sting on her heart. It’s all very warm. The sunlight filters through the cotton field and past Clarke’s hair, creates a lens flare that gives it a dream like quality. Clarke looks breathtaking.

Ignoring the lead pooling in her stomach, Lexa turns her camera off as she turns towards the stream. In the fading sunlight, she sees Anya peeling her pants, ready to join a half naked Raven in the water. With half a mind to ask how they plan to  _ see _ anything around them in about twenty minutes, Lexa just shouts that they’re going back to town, earning two thumbs up and a shout back acknowledging it. 

Lexa wonders if she should ask Clarke over for a drink - something to thank her for indulging them in the photoshoot and wasting an afternoon away with them, something innocent as it can be. The way her throat closes and her stomach drops has little to do with the doubt between offering coffee or whiskey. She shakes her head as if to rid herself of all the words her heart is trying to tell her, and decides that whiskey is more appropriate for the occasion.

“Ready?” Lexa calls out for Clarke as she gets to the field, walking towards her camera bag. She crouches down to put her camera away, separating the body of the camera from the lenses, putting the cap on them both, taking a moment to gather herself.

When she gets up, Clarke is waiting a few feet away, still thumbing something on her phone. Lexa can’t say she isn’t curious, but she knows very well it isn’t her place to ask anything. Instead, she lets the last of the light guide them to the truck, the crickets and the frogs being the only sounds filling the silence.

They get to the truck and Lexa half expects Clarke to make a comment about the open windows and the key still in the ignition, but she simply climbs inside. It’s an odd difference between their easy banter a short while ago, each one of them taking turns halfheartedly criticizing Chicago or Polis. But Lexa simply climbs in as well, turning the engine on and letting the headlights guide their way back home.

Leaving the farm behind and turning into a dirt road, Lexa readies herself to say something, the invitation about to leave her lips when Clarke speaks first. “Do you mind dropping me off at Finn’s? He says his farm is a little ways after yours,” her voice trails off as her screen lightens up again and she turns her attention to it, “Oh, he’ll be waiting at the gate.”

Lexa nods, once. “I’m going back to town to see Costia, so I’d drive past there anyway,” she lies through her teeth, gripping the steering wheel with a little more force than she needs to, hoping the cool night breeze will fade the flush rising on her neck, “It’s not a problem at all.”

It doesn’t take her more than half a breath to feel the guilt rippling through her, from the tip of her toes to the fine hair of her neck. 

Lexa hasn’t seen her fiancée in days, she hasn’t really been with her in over a week, they haven’t truly spent time together the way they used to since the engagement party. This whole point of this photoshoot had been to do just that - to be together, to enjoy each other in the middle of a field, to fall in love all over again. 

If Costia had come along, they’d probably still be out in the field, enjoying the last few rays of sun from the chilly water in the stream, holding on to each other for warmth, wrapped in their own little world. 

Instead, Lexa is planning to invite someone else over for drinks.

Turning the radio on and fiddling with the dial until she finds somewhere that’s hasn’t yet launched into the evening news, Lexa fills the silence if only to distract herself, “How are things going with Finn?”

“Good,” Clarke answers, looking away from her phone as she locks the screen and turning to Lexa, “He can be a little intense at times, but he’s sweet and kind. More than I can say about half my flings. I don’t understand why everyone shits on him.”

Lexa thinks for a moment, back to town parties and one too many girls coming over Costia’s bakery for the strongest coffee they could find, hungover beyond measure after drinking their heart away, “It’s not really my place to say, but his reputation of heartbreaker isn’t unearned.”

Shrugging, Clarke looks out of the window, “Well, I don’t do relationships and I have no plans on falling for him, so I guess I’m good.”

There’s a story there as well, Lexa knows that much. No one opts out of relationships just for the sake of it, but she decides against proding. They’ve just driven by Lexa’s place and Finn’s should be only a few minutes away, “Is he coming to the game on Friday?”

“That’s two weeks from now, isn’t it?” Clarke says, sounding almost surprised at the thought of them still being together that far into the future. “I guess so. I mean, even if we don’t go together, he might be there anyway. He does like his football games.” Lexa doesn’t see the eyeroll, but can hear it clearly in her tone. “Wells will be here by then. Is it okay if he tags along?”

“Of course,” Lexa nods, keeping her curiosity to herself. She’s eager to meet this Wells guy Clarke talks so much about - granted, she’s heard more about it from Costia than Clarke herself, but still, “When is he coming?”

“I think this Thursday. He still has a few things to get in order back home, but he won’t stop talking about finding a farm and getting a dog,” Clarke says with a smile, the kind of smile only a best friend being insufferable can bring out. “I swear I might lose him to the South when I’m ready to go back to Chicago.”

Something clicks in Lexa’s mind, something about Wallace’s son going to Europe for a semester and filing in a petition for the sheriff department to make nightly rounds somewhere ten miles away from town to make sure it’s safe. She sees a light coming from a truck parked a few yards ahead and slows down to park across from it, “I might know of a farm that needs house sitting for a few months, if he’s interested.”

“Oh, that’d be great!” Clarke says, half reaching for her phone as if eager to tell Wells the good news. “Can you send me their info? Cos has my number.”

Lexa assures Clarke that she will confirm it and ask Costia to text her everything, which sounds more trouble than it’s worth it considering the Griffin Clinic sits about a block away from the Town Hall. They say their goodbyes, Clarke politely asking when she’ll get to see the pictures and Lexa telling her she’ll edit them this weekend, if she has time, and will let her know how to get them.

And then Clarke is climbing out of the truck and half jogging towards Finn. He had been waiting for them with his gate half open, his foot propped up on the lowest grade. He welcomes Clarke into a half hug, pressing a kiss to her forehead and raising the arm resting on top of the gate to greet Lexa.

She drives away before he can thank her for bringing  _ his girl _ to him safe.

As the radio station starts with the evening news, Lexa lowers the volume and calls Costia, puts her on speaker, asks her to stay with her until she gets to town and the bakery. Lexa doesn’t trust herself enough to be alone with her thoughts, but more than that, she’s missed Costia. She feels like they’ve been missing each other for a long while now.

When Costia’s melodical laughter rings in the truck at something she said, Lexa really believes she can call her fiancée home again.

 


	5. of baby boys and double dates — part one

If someone had told Clarke she'd be spending her Sunday afternoon sitting on her granddad's front porch, drinking sweet tea and listening to town gossip, she would have laughed, and maybe suggested a visit to the psychiatric ward for a check up. Because she had spent half her life swearing she'd never step in Polis again and the mere idea of wasting a perfectly good day doing nothing was enough to make her skin crawl.

In Chicago, a lazy Sunday for her meant sleeping in, having brunch instead of breakfast and going for a run before finding a textbook she could read through and take scrawly notes about while some TV show played in the background. She could count in one hand the times she had sat on the fire escape on her apartment without her phone or something else to keep her busy - and all of those times had happened well after two in the morning, when her mind was too tired or too numbed by alcohol to even need anything other than the street lights to distract her.

So no, she didn't think she'd ever lean back on the same chairs she used to hop on to read when she was a child and prop her feet up on the rail, bound to do nothing but watch the condensation form on her glass. But here she is. And it's not half as bad as she thought it'd be.

The sun itself seems to be too lazy to move from where it stands. Even at seven in the evening, the sky is still painfully blue and the heat clings to her skin, warming her up in a way that makes her glad to be wearing shorts and thankful for the sweet tea. Clarke closes her eyes for a moment and settles the glass on her thigh, feeling the contrast between the ice cold bottom and her warm skin, and she feels content right there and then.

It's a new feeling for her, a weird one. She's so used to everything going so fast in Chicago, in a pace where her days seem to end before it even truly begin, that sitting still and watching the day crawl by the way it did in Polis made her feel antsy for the first few weeks, longing for things to move by quicker. It took her a whole month, but she's finally winding down and finding joy in just being - not that she'll tell her mom about that, she doesn't need that 'I told you so' look.

Costia walks out of the house with a whole pitcher of sweet tea, lemon slices floating on the amber liquid that fall on her glass as she fills it. Thanking her when she does the same for her, Clarke watches her settle the pitcher on the rail, walk to the chair beside her, tuck her feet under her legs as she sits down. Costia looks like she was made to live like this, a Southern Belle through and through. She makes it look so effortless, to be at peace with herself, to be happy with drinking tea on a Sunday afternoon.

After a moment where they both watch a ginger cat flying on the sidewalk as a dog chases it, Costia picks up right where she left and jumps on a story about someone who's sleeping with someone else and everyone in town but the husband knows. Clarke doesn't know half the people she's talking about, but it's not an issue for Costia - "You'll get to know everyone eventually, so you might as well know the juicy stuff." So she listens to her and makes half an effort to remember the names, but the warm breeze is making her sleepy. 

Costia is halfway through trying to explain who the husband is - a kid they went to school with is this guy's older brother, and Clarke wonders how is that helpful at all - when her phone pings with a new message. 

She reaches for it and finds a text from Finn, telling her he just got home and asking what she's up to. They had seen each other just this morning when she had to tell him three times that yes, it's okay for him to go to a barbecue with his buddies, and no, she doesn't want to go, but thanks for asking. He asked her opinion on his outfit - too country for her taste, but the short sleeve button down did bring out his arm muscles - and told her he'd text her when he got home. Which he did.

If she's being honest, she's still trying to find the bastard everyone seems to know so well. So far, Finn has been nothing but sweet with her, and if he speeds his truck a little too much when he picks her up from the clinic and makes puppy eyes at her to get what he wants far too often, she can live with it.

Clarke takes a picture of her sweet tea, her legs propped up on the rail and the garden beyond it serving as a nice background. She takes a moment to send it to him, saying she's spending time with Costia but that she'll save him some tea if he wants to do something later. 

Leaning over the arm of her chair and almost catching what Clarke is typing, Costia asks, "Is that Finn?"

"Yeah," Clarke manages to mumble halfway through a sip, clicking a button to shut the screen of her phone off. She's learned pretty fast that people in Polis will whisper passive-aggressive comments if she tries to interact with anyone while on her phone. "He just came back from a barbecue with his friends and texted me to let me know."

Costia nods, a knowing smile lighting up her face. "How are things with him?"

She has never been one to gush over boys with friends, has never even had enough friends that she could do this with. But Costia seems genuinely interested, open to whatever she has to say despite her own feelings for Finn. Clarke pauses for a moment, trying to think about what to say - she's not in love and he's not either, there's nothing more to them than two people having some fun, but she doubts that will go over too well with Costia, The Helpless Romantic. "Things are good. He's a good guy."

"I still don't think he is, but I'm happy for you, Clarke," Costia says in a whisper, reaching over to squeeze her arm. Despite everything, Clarke can tell that she really does mean it, "Does your mom know him?"

Clarke shifts on her chair and lets her feet fall to the floor. She's not used to her mom knowing much about her love life, but keeping her flings a secret was so much easier when she lived halfway across the country and not in a town with less people than she went to school with. "Does she know I'm with him? Sure. I think she even ran into him at the grocery store and they talked a bit. But he doesn't come over."

"Why not?" Costia stares down at her, willing her to answer, almost like she knows Clarke wants to find a way around it. She liked it more when Costia were telling her mindless gossip from people she doesn't know.

Clarke shrugs, "It's nothing serious. It'll end sooner or later and I don't want to bring someone over when I know it won't last." She never brought a boyfriend or girlfriend back home, never spent enough time with someone to want to do that, and she's fairy certain she won't start now.

Costia hums, in a way that Clarke has come to associate with her trying to convince herself to keep her nose out of it, but knowing she'll fail. Instead of even trying to remedy the situation, Clarke sighs, watches Costia drinking her tea, waits for it to come. "It looks like you're scared it will work out," Costia says and it takes Clarke every ounce of her not to groan, "It's okay to find happiness in a little town in the middle of nowhere, you know? You deserve it."

Rolling her eyes very pointedly so Costia knows she's annoyed, Clarke turns her attention to her phone. She sees the three dots flashing and reads Finn's text right when it gets to her - 'have fun! text me when i can go over to get some tea' - but decides against texting him back. She will do so when Costia goes home and she's ready to hop on his truck. 

She likes Finn. He's a fun guy to be around and he can keep her bed warm, thank you very much. But Clarke knows it won't become anything more than what it is - because it never does. Besides, she plans on being gone from this town before anyone can get attached to her and she certainly doesn't want anything tying her to this town. Soon enough, she'll be back to being a damn good prenatal specialist and sleeping with guys whose cologne doesn't have a damn fish on it. 

She's been counting the days for it.

Sure, killing time looking at nothing and drinking tea is nice. But the novelty wears off really quickly and most of the time, Clarke just finds herself begging for somewhere with fast internet and twenty-four hour delivery.

Clarke is reaching for her phone again when Costia gasps, claps her hands and springs up in her chair, almost toppling over. "We should double date!" Costia says it like it's the greatest idea ever, "Me and Lexa, you and Finn."

Her surprise is clear in her face as she scrambles to find words, "I thought you hated Finn."

"I don't hate him," Costia barks back, scoffing in outrage as if her disliking someone is a capital offense. Clarke smiles at her amused, raising an eyebrow until she sighs, "Alright, he's not my favorite person." Clarke lets out a laughter. For the past two weeks or so, Costia has taken any chance to try and make Clarke 'see reason' when it comes to Finn. But it's been done in a very Southern way, so sweet that she didn't realize that was Costia's way to shit talk until she noticed her using a lot of bless his heart - which is Southern for fuck him, that much Clarke knows. Still, Costia reaches out to squeeze her hand, her gaze as warm as the late afternoon, "But he's important to you, so I'm willing to give him another shot. Just make sure he's in his best behavior."

The idea of Finn and Costia spending a whole evening together was enough to make Clarke's skin crawl, but there was a heaviness in her stomach that she couldn't explain away. It was Lexa that worries her the most - not because she's been talking about how awful Finn is and how it's just a matter of time before he hurts Clarke, but because she hasn't. In fact, Lexa hasn't spoken to her at all ever since their photoshoot, besides a polite greeting whenever they ran into each other at the bakery and a single interaction a couple days ago when she said that she'd put her pictures on a memory stick and hand it to Costia.

There's a reason behind that, and there's no way Clarke can be sure it's the same reason why she has been leaving the room whenever Lexa stepped on it.

The photoshoot was... fine. Clarke doesn't exactly have much to compare against, but the fact that Anya didn't look like she wanted to murder her when they were finished was a good enough clue. Raven made it easier, gave her some pointers and go to poses that always looked good, distracted her from the pressure she put on herself. And Lexa- well, Lexa had looked at her like Clarke were her David and nothing would ever be as good as that moment.

It had been awkward enough to wear Costia's clothes and sit pretty in the middle of a field when she'd be much more comfortable in high fashion, posing in the busy streets of Chicago. Throughout the whole photoshoot, Clarke couldn't help how much she felt like an imposter, taking over someone's life and pretending it was hers. But to have Lexa come far too close to her, well into her personal space, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear in the softest way possible, stare at her like time itself had stopped and ceased to exist was too much for her to fully believe the photoshoot had been a success.

The photos might have come out alright, but something broke in between then. As much as Lexa assured her that they could be friends, Clarke couldn't help but think that their friendship had shattered to pieces before it even started. 

Not when even that memory was enough to make her hold her breath.

Pushing it all to the back of her mind, Clarke tries one last Hail Mary to get out of this double date that might as well render her insane, "Wells is important to me too and he'll be here in three days." She can make it through dinner if Wells is there - as long as he keeps his mouth shut about how gorgeous Clarke thinks Lexa is. She misses her best friend. "Can't you just wait for him and you two can bond or whatever?"

"When Wells gets here, we'll do that," Costia says in such a matter-of-factly way that Clarke knows that anything she says will be pointless. As if realizing her victory, Costia smiles all smug, very proud of what she accomplished, "Meanwhile, you can show me how great of a guy Finn is and how wrong I was."

Groaning so dramatically that Costia bursts out laughing, Clarke chugs what's left of her sweet tea and whines, "You're too good, you know that, right? You wouldn't survive a day out there."

"Guess it's a good thing I don't plan on leaving," Costia winks at her, too happy about winning this argument to even care about anything other than discussing what they should make for dinner and whether or not Charades would be a good call.

The next hour only serves to prove that Clarke knows next to nothing about Finn - not his favorite food, whether or not he drinks wine, if he's a fan of games. It's not like they talk a lot or go deep into their feelings and past traumas. It is what it is and they're both content to have someone to vent to about their day and to keep their bed warm. 

It surprises Costia more than it surprises Clarke.

It's well past sunset when Costia finds the courage to get up after such a lazy afternoon, leaving behind enough sweet tea to quell the thirst of a thousand men. Clarke puts most of it away in the fridge, putting some in a thermos to take with her to Finn's, and writes a note for her mom to know where she's spending her evening. 

Only then, she calls Finn.

It takes him less than ten minutes to get there and he honks, despite Clarke being standing in the porch - an awful habit that he has, something small that might become big enough to chip away at her patience and give her an excuse to end things. She climbs into his truck and doesn't kiss him goodnight, offering the tea instead as she tells him about the double date, launches into the twelve or so questions Costia demanded that she asked him before he can really respond. She knows it's a lot to throw at a guy. They've been together for a solid week and they're already going out with engaged couples. It gives off the wrong message.

She has all the answers she promised Costia - yes, he does drink wine but prefers whiskey, he loves pulled pork and will make a veggie burger if she decides to go for grilling night - and the tea is all but gone by the time they make it to his farm. Finn mentions that Lexa doesn't like him, but Clarke brushes it off. Surely, Costia checked with Clarke. Surely, they're not going into this double date blind. 

The rest of the night is spent watching bad TV, eating leftovers from the barbecue Finn was at and going through his closet to help him find something that didn't scream country boy. It proves to be a harder task than Clarke first imagined and more effort than she had been willing to put into their - and she uses this word lightly - relationship, but it's a price she's willing to pay if it means Costia will give her a break.

Finn gives her a ride into town in the morning, after making her breakfast - it consisted of toasted bagels and weak coffee, but she'll take it - and she realizes that eight in the morning is too damn early for her to be listening to country music. But Clarke simply thanks him for the ride, says she'll see him tomorrow for their double date, and walks into the clinic.

She finds it packed, but she doesn't dare to get her hopes up and think anyone there is willing to be seen by her.

In the month she's been working with her mom, the whole town has made it clear that they don't trust her medical skills and would rather wait two hours in a waiting room filled with people sicker than they are than have a 'kid doctor who's a kid herself' to even take a look at then. So, her office - the one that belonged to her grandpa and still has the tell-tale signs of it - goes unused and she spends most of her time in the mornings taking people's blood pressure and pricking fingers to see what their blood sugar is, writing it down on their chart along with their symptoms and telling them Dr. Griffin will be right with them. More often than not, Clarke has to specify that it's Dr. Abby Griffin that will be seeing them, after they give her a panicky look.

Helping Jackson with triage makes half her mornings and the start of her afternoons less boring, but there's not much more to do after that. It's been one single month, and Clarke has already resigned to reading medical magazines in an excruciatingly slow pace, stealing sudoku puzzles from her mom and doodling on scrap paper at the reception desk.

She's used to working twenty four hour shifts with little to no sleep, getting ten minutes nap in and chugging coffee like that is her job before scrubbing into an emergency c-section or a prenatal surgery that she fought tooth and nail to be assigned to. She's used to having a moment to rest only when the newborn babies she was looking over were all stable and sleeping, and she'd get to hold the tiniest one until their breathing got stronger. She's used to filling the quiet moments of her days with research she never really had time to do and eating lunch lying on a stretcher so she could get some sleep in. She's used to a workload so intense she'd be delirious on the drive home. She's used to sleeping a refreshing five hours before starting all over again.

Now, she's sleeping eight hours a day and taking two entire hours for her lunch break, having weekends off and her nights to herself. It's a good change of scenery, and Clarke doesn't mind it at all.

Well, that's a big fat lie - she's going insane.

She's an OB/GYN and a damn good one, trained by the greatest names in Chicago. She's used to working under pressure and she can deliver a baby that has their umbilical cord wrapped around their neck without blinking. She can do so much better than sitting around, watching daytime TV, and waiting for her mom to call her in for a consult whenever she has a pregnant lady who could be convinced that the younger Dr. Griffin is any good.

Clarke has forced herself to think of this as a year off where she'll learn fucking patience and recharge from all the years she's spent studying. One month down, eleven to go. And that's considering she can get a fellowship right after her time in purgatory is over.

Shrugging her white coat on and hanging her stethoscope around her neck, Clarke walks around the nurse's office and picks up a file, goes out into the waiting room to call out the name. A little boy with his flannel tucked into his jeans looks up from his mom's shoulder, where he's bundled up and looking feverish. The mom hurries him into the office and Clarke makes small talk with the boy, who's maybe two or three years old, as they weigh and measure him. She sits down after putting a thermometer under his tongue, takes notes on what his mom tells her. With a "Dr. Griffin should be with you in a little while" after the mom vehemently refuses that Clarke examine his throat, she sends both of them back to the waiting room.

Her morning crawls by like that. 

She can take it when it's old people stuck in their own ways who demand to see Dr. Griffin, the real one, saying she knows them and Clarke would just mess it up - she wouldn't, because her mother keeps throughout files from everyone in this town, and a quick look would tell her everything she needs to know. But it stings when a six-month-old comes in with a hundred degree fever and all she's allowed to do is give her a tepid bath to help bring it down when she knows what to do to make the baby better.

After everyone waiting out front has their file in a pile on Abby's desk, Clarke walks into her own office and brings out a dozen or so files with her to the reception. She's in charge of writing up prescriptions for medications that need to be renewed monthly, following her mom's notes and signing them herself. It's something she can put on her letter when she does sign up for fellowships, something that will make it slightly better to prove that she cares about patients even when they're all seniors and she wants a fellowship in prenatal care. But it's easy and takes up so much time that she doesn't mind have a portion of her day wasted like that. It brightens her day when she gets to write them in the reception with Jackson and listen to the music he always has on - something different every day, that isn't country. It helps keep her sane during her eight hour workday where she gets close to nothing done, safe for the occasional pregnant lady her mom asks for some consultation on. 

She's twirling her pen and looking through someone lab exams, trying to figure out why the meds they're taking aren't helping, when the front door slams open. It's close to lunch time and people usually choose their own break to come in, but even then, they're rather wait for Abby than let her see them.

Clarke looks up just in time to see a heavily pregnant woman dragging her feet towards the reception, sweat trickling down her temple with the effort, one hand holding her belly, the other reaching out blindly. "I'm having contractions."

It takes a moment for Clarke to snap out of the lull her life has become and spring into action. By the time she makes her way around the reception, Jackson has already helped her sit on a wheelchair and is starting to wheel her down the hallway. Clarke takes over that and asks for him to get the woman's file, then let Abby know and immediately go to the exam room far in the back. It's something they use for pap smears and whatever other exams that require a little more privacy, but it's hardly a delivery room and there's absolutely no way it's equipped with everything they might need.

The two women get inside the room among barely constricted yells of pain and Clarke doesn't need a watch to know the contractions are so close that baby might come out any minute. 

"How far along are you again?" Clarke asks as she helps the woman out of her clothes, damp with sweat and what must be amniotic fluid, and into a gown. Her head hits Clarke's shoulder and she has to steady her through another contraction. Abby called her into for a consult last week and Clarke remembers telling her the baby sounded as well as it could be, but she can't recall the nitty details.

"Thirty eight weeks," she answers through gritted teeth, "My due date isn't until next week."

"Harper- it's Harper, right?" Clarke guesses more than anything, figuring she better start calling her by the first name if they're about to go into what she's sure will be a fucking adventure together. The woman nods as Clarke helps her into the bed, guiding her feet on the stirrups, but whatever Harper meant to say is drowned by another scream. "I'm sorry, but this baby is coming now."

"No, he can't," Harper pants - she's having a boy then, "Monty isn't here. I can't have him now."

Clarke makes a mental note of everything she'll need - or the bare minimum she can get away with - and takes a look down to gauge exactly how far along she is. The baby is crowning. "The baby doesn't want to wait much longer, but we can do this. Do you trust me?"

Jackson bursts into the room, carrying a tray of what Clarke prays to all gods listening are sterilized instruments, "Your mom is calling into the hospital to let them know we're coming."

"There's no time," Clarke whispers to him so Harper doesn't hear them. She's already under too much duress as it is. "Have you guys delivered any babies here?"

"No since your grandfather was here," Jackson's eyes go wide with panic that Clarke doesn't allow herself to show.

"Okay. We can do this." She'd rather deliver this baby in here than in the back of the truck that would drive them to the closest hospital. Clarke grabs the tray from Jackson and settles it beside the bed, finds the stool she needs and rips a packet of gloves open. If nothing goes wrong, they'll be fine. "Harper, are you with me? Fight the urge to push, okay? Hold that baby for a little longer."

"Monty. I need Monty," her voice is barely a whisper after the last contraction let off and she can breathe again, her head lolling to the side.

"Jackson, can you call him? And get my mom?" All her sense of professionalism and calling Abby by her last name is forgotten when she has virtually no meds to put into an IV, no ICU if the mom or the baby need it and no time to get themselves in a better situation. "I'll get things as ready as we can here and then you're coming in to help me bring this baby to the world, okay?"

Things seem to happen very slowly and very fast at the same time.

Her mom takes too long to tell the patients in the waiting room that she has an emergency and they should go back in the afternoon, too long to explain what's happening when they've seen a very distressed and very pregnant woman coming in. Clarke runs through her comforting words faster than Harper needs, and she tries to recall what the midwives said back in Chicago, starts to repeat the same things, hoping it'll make sense, hoping it'll help, hoping, hoping. It takes her husband, Monty, an eternity to make it to the makeshift delivery room, all sweaty and all of breath. It takes a moment for the baby to let everyone knows he's ready.

The baby is ready to come out.

They go back to basics. To warming water in the kettle Jackson keeps in the kitchen and folding towels to make a crib. To hoping the baby won't need more than they can offer.

Harper yells in pain and goes limp more times than Clarke can count. She works quick, whispering for Jackson to hand her this or that, for him to hold a certain tool this way or that. The room fills with screams and gasps and grunts that seem to come from Harper's gut. Monty tries to comfort his wife. Abby does the same, but just so her blood pressure stays low, since they can't check. Clarke coaches her through it all, the metallic thud of instruments against the tray mixing with her own heartbeat.

For a second, a full second, the room goes silent - so much so it seems like the world itself has gone quite.

And then- a piercing scream.

Clarke puts a clamp on the umbilical cord and puts the baby - Jordan, the new parents whisper, Jordan Green - on Harper's chest after cleaning him off as best as she could and making sure he's healthy. His lungs let them know that yes, he's healthy and not afraid of letting everyone know he's here.

Never in her whole medical career has Clarke been so happy to see a healthy baby - one that didn't need her at all, one that she had nothing to learn from.

The magic from the moment stays with her as she finishes up, double checks baby Jordan is alright, writes the file they need to take to the hospital in the city over herself. The smile that found its way to her lips when she heard that first cry stays with her for the whole day. The blissful happiness of that single moment where life was brought to this world when everything was against it will stay with her for the rest of her days.

X X X

Southern sunsets are breathtaking, Clarke will say that much.

It’s not Chicago doesn’t have amazing sunsets, that’s not it. She has spent her fair share of late afternoons downing a cup of extra strong coffee, looking out the window from the hospital where she still has half her shift to go, and watching as the soft pinks turn into lilac into purple into deep blue. It was the one moment in her shift that she allowed herself to take a break and take a breath, to find calm in the sky.

But the sunsets she finds in Polis are something else entirely. Where sunsets in Chicago were soft and calming, here they are life itself injected in the sky. The hues fall anywhere between nearly-white yellow and bright orange, clouds fighting to stay in the sky when it seems like light will swallow them whole, the sun refusing to go without a fight. It casts a golden glow in everything, the kind that should only belong to beaches and memories. It gives Clarke courage she doesn’t think she should have, it gives her peace of mind she isn’t sure she deserves.

As she drives down the gravel road, Clarke takes in the stubborn sun setting behind the corn field, her fingers tapping on the steering wheel to the rhythm of the song – she’s listening to something that  _ isn’t _ country, for the first time in a whole month. She had to go to that weird grocery/stationery/furniture store hybrid to get a CD, then figure out how to download music in her mom’s old desktop since her laptop doesn’t have a CD drive, and burn one with only twelve songs, but she’s finally listening to decent music.

The electric beat drags and drops, reminding her of nights spent in parties with low light and high people, where her senses tricked her enough that nothing felt real. She doesn’t know this singer, but he has a deep voice, husky enough to remind her of what happened  _ after _ those parties ended and private ones began. Clarke misses Chicago, misses the buzz of the city, misses how simple things seem to be back there now that she’s in such a mess. And that song is filling the void her move left.

One look to the passenger seat is enough to kill the vibe she had going on. Finn is sulking – arms crossed over his chest, lips jutting out, staring out into the road like a goddamn five-year-old.

Clarke can’t fucking tell if he’s mad because he said yes to this double date, because she won’t let him put his country music on, or because she insisted on driving. Probably a combo of all three ridiculous excuses. But he’s wearing a Patagonia vest over flannel, there’s no way people won’t know he’s not from the south, and he’s not any less straight for having a woman driving him to their date.

(He was polite when asking if she wanted him to drive, but Clarke could hear him puffing when she said she got it. It’s her mother’s car and she’s not letting him drive just to protect his fragile masculinity.)

They drive in silence for most of the way.

The road is familiar to Clarke – not familiar enough for her to know where every pothole is, but enough that she’s not lost anymore. Day by day, everything in Polis feel a bit more familiar. Clarke doesn’t get lost on her way to her mom’s house anymore, which seemed to amuse Jackson to no end, and she can more or less figure out where things are with just a few directions.  _ People  _ in Polis seem familiar too – the woman who’s in the clinic every other day because of her blood pressure and the three old men who read the paper together in the bakery every morning, the kid who broke his arm falling from a tree in the square and was back there the next day.

The quiet in her days, the friendliness in everyone, details that make her like the town just a little bit more than she did when she first got here.

For Finn’s sake, Clarke turns the radio off when they pass through the gates. She parks the car behind Lexa’s old truck, the mud that came with the rain early in the day still clinging to the tailgate, covering the Chevy logo. It takes her a moment to remember to turn the engine off, memories of a day spent together in a farm clouding her judgement.

Clarke isn’t sure what to expect from herself when she crosses the door step and finds Lexa, with her arms wrapped around her fiancée’s waist and her walls raised as tall as they will go. Because she might have known Lexa for just a little while, might have gotten to know her more through Costia’s constant praise that pours out of her with so much love Clarke thinks she’s intruding even when Lexa isn’t in the room. But the promises of friendship shared near the sunset, with cotton field as their witness, seem like glass ready to the shattered.

A knock on her window startle her out of her reverie – Finn is holding the door open, reaching out his hand for her to take. Clarke grabs the wine bottle the brought last minute and the flower bouquet Finn put together from his own garden, and takes his hand, lets him be a gentleman and help her out of the car without making a scene. It had been the reason for their first fight – his upbringing made him so chivalrous that it just didn’t agree with her own need  _ not _ to be a damsel in distress.

"This should be exciting," Finn says, scoffing at his own words as he closes the door and takes the wine bottle from Clarke’s hand so he could intertwine their fingers instead, "They hate me."

"They don't. Costia wouldn't have suggested this if she hated you," her words sound like little white lies even to her own ears. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Lexa can’t stand the guy – if the scene at their engagement party hadn’t been clear enough, her face of utter disgust when she dropped Clarke at his place on Saturday didn’t leave any doubts.

He shrugs, giving her the benefit of the doubt. "Yeah, I guess Cos is fine. But her wife wants me dead."

"Just- Behave," Clarke warns. The last thing she needs is for Finn and Lexa to start barking at each other and leave her and Costia to put out a fire that keeps fueling itself. She’s never seen them in the same room, trying to have a pleasant conversation, but she wouldn’t put money on it having a good outcome.

Tugging her towards the front door, Finn winks at her, "I always behave."

Clarke rolls her eyes, letting a smile crawl to her lips to cushion the blow of her words, "You didn't earn your bad reputation by being a fucking sunshine."

Finn is ready to argue his case, the wheels turning in his head to find the best angle to defend himself. But Clarke knows enough of his fights in out of town bars, his conquests that had everything for a month and then nothing but heartbreak to tend to, the way he’s so quick to anger that he deflates. "I'll behave," Finn promises, letting go of her hand to knock on the door.

It’s only a few minutes until Costia opens the door, her smile bright as ever as she throws her arms around Clarke in hello. Clarke hugs back, used to being engulfed in warmth by now, welcoming the curls that cloud her vision as Costia tightens the hug just a little bit more before letting go and thanking her for the flowers. Watching Costia breathe in the soft smell the freshly cut flowers waft and then laugh when a bumblebee wobbles away from the bunch, Clarke can’t help but understand why Lexa would travel the world and come back to her arms.

Costia welcomes them inside, excusing herself to go put the flowers into some water and let the wine chill, telling them make themselves comfortable in the living room. Clarke crosses the simple entryway and lets her fingers run through the details in wood that brings it to life – there are a few hooks on the wall, one holding the cowboy hat Costia’s dad gifted Lexa, another with a picture from their engagement party – as she follows Finn, who seems too uncomfortable to keep still, into the living room.

The one other time Clarke had been over, she had been too preoccupied in getting Lexa to like her – for Costia’s sake – that she hadn’t paid attention to the house at all. Which was a shame, Clarke realizes now, because the house is beautiful. It’s very tasteful, a mix between traditional farmhouse and modern concepts. Something that only someone who had lived in both environments, loved both places, could come up with.

Hardwood floors flow across the house, matching the exposed beams on the ceiling. White walls, decorated with art that Clarke can swear comes from Chicago and photographs telling the story of a life lived together, merge into natural stone wall, that turn the fireplace corner into something straight out of a romance novel. Clarke peaks past the glass doors that lets the last rays of sun cast a golden glow into the living room and finds a sitting area outside in the wrap around porch, comfy chairs surrounding a low table with a cup of tea gone cold on it. Beyond that, there are flowers blooming in the garden and trees in the distance, framing the hills that roll into the horizon.

It’s a gorgeous house, a gorgeous place to life. Definitely something she’d never find in Chicago.

Clarke knows the odds of her mother selling her grandfather’s house that is half a block away from the clinic in favor of a farmhouse are slim, but oh, she wants to give it a shot. Or maybe, she could just move in with Wells when he gets here – Lexa swears the guy she put him in contact with has the most beautiful house.

She’s pulled from the daydream that would have earned a punch in the gut from her former self when Finn drops his arm around her shoulders. It’s a habit he has whenever they go somewhere – which, granted, has happened maybe a handful of time, but it was enough to have Clarke fighting her eye roll. It’s possessive in a way she doesn’t care for. She blinks the sunset away and turns to him, letting her hand fall to his waist and meaning to take them to the corner couch that faces the fireplace, but he turns her around instead.

Lexa is coming down the hallway towards the open living room, her still damp hair falling in gorgeous curls over one shoulder.

Against her better judgement, Clarke sucks in a breath.

Between Finn’s flannel and vest outfit that screamed country boy and Costia looking the picture perfect of a Southern Belle with her pearls and baby blue button-down shirt tucked into a midi prom skirt, Clarke felt out of place. And that’s putting it mildly. Her leather skirt fell maybe four fingers shorter than what the Southern folks would find appropriate, and her body with kimono sleeves and plunging neckline left little to the imagination – which would have been a great date outfit in Chicago, but it was clearly a different story in Polis.

But Lexa, with her high waisted mom jeans, white tee and black heels, looks like she herself is ready to venture the night, hopping every brownstone bar Andersonville has to offer. Her heels knock softly on the hardwood floor while still demanding attention – that Clarke is more than happy to give.

“Costia told me you had gotten here, I apologize for not welcoming you at the door,” Lexa says, in a formal tone that Clarke hopes it’s for Finn’s sake and not for hers. “I was finishing getting ready.”

Clarke bites her tongue when her first instinct is to say it was worth the wait. It’d be too much, it’d go across the wrong way. Because Lexa is gorgeous in the way Greek sculptures imagined goddesses, with chiseled jaws and strong arms, all of which seem to be accentuated by her outfit somehow. But her fiancée is just in the other room and Clarke doubts Finn would care for it. Instead, she chooses another route, “Are we early?”

“No, I’m late,” Lexa brushes her off as she closes the distance between them, her eyes glued on Finn, “I got stuck at the office and didn’t realize how late it was.”

There’s a moment of heavy silence that draws out too long for it to be comfortable, things that Clarke isn’t privy to weighing them all down. She feels Finn tightening his grip on her shoulder, bringing her closer – Clarke can’t quite tell if he wants to feel calmer with her near him or if he wants to send a message, mark his territory. Fighting her urge to roll her eyes yet again and untangle herself from his embrace, Clarke watches as unsaid things thicken the air around them, her own breath growing shorter.

“Collins,” Lexa greets him with a single not, not bothering to extend a hand for him to shake.

Finn doesn’t seem to mind, as he himself has a firm grip on Clarke’s shoulder, his other hand tucked into his back pocket, “Woods.”

Peeling her eyes from Finn and turning to Clarke, Lexa blinks away the animosity and softens, not quite daring to tug her lips up in a smile but showing it in her eyes all the same. “Clarke, would you mind helping me with drinks? I’m sure Collins can entertain himself for a bit.”

“Sure,” Clarke answers readily and if she has to tug at Finn’s shirt to make him let go of her shoulder, she hopes Lexa doesn’t see it. It’s not that she minds it – it feels almost comfortable, to be in his arms and be so fiercely protected when she didn’t have anything similar to that in her life. But there’s a time and place for that, and this isn’t it.

“Whiskey, neat,” Finn says, putting both his hands on his back pocket, still holding a staring contest that Lexa no longer bothers to participate in.

“Wouldn’t dream to give you wine,” Lexa bites back, sharp and ready for a fight, at the same time guides Clarke down the same hallway she came through.

The house is designed in a way that the living room opens to a formal dining room, a cozy library slash music room and a small home office sharing the space to the side. They walk beyond them, past the wall that separates the dining space from the kitchen, towards the open area of the bar that faces the kitchen. Clarke is reminded of the HGTV shows that were always on in the waiting rooms across the hospital, where sometimes she’d take her lunch to, where more often than not she walked in to give news – good, bad and awful – to the relatives of whoever had been on her operating table. She didn’t pay much attention to the shows then, but Lexa’s house seems like something straight out of it.

Looking towards the kitchen, she sees a large wooden island with stools for breakfast and company while cooking, and beyond that, Costia, framed by white tiles and dark green windows, adjusting the wild flowers Finn brought her into a gorgeous vase. Costia must hear the soft clinking behind her and turns to take in her fiancée and old-turned-new-best-friend, a smile brightening up her features even more as she makes her way towards them, vase in hand.

“Hi, sweetheart. You look- lovely,” Costia says, pressing her lips to Lexa’s cheek, the pause in her speech easily mistaken by a momentary loss for words. Then she turns to Clarke, her eyes narrowed as she adjusts her grip on the flowers, “Now, these walls are thin and I have excellent hearing, so I know you two didn’t say proper hello. If you could please hug like the well raised southern girls you two are, I’d appreciate it.”

It sounds like scolding, the drawl in her words making her sound like every stern mother who refuses to let their children forget propriety. Costia gives them one last dirty look before she crosses the opening towards the living room, already starting a lively conversation with Finn about the plums he left for her at the bakery earlier today.

They could brush it off, pretend they have hugged as warmly as Costia expected them to do and finish getting the drinks ready instead. Clarke is half hoping Lexa does just that. But when Lexa settles the bottle back down on the counter and opens her arms in a begrudging way that doesn’t match her playful eyeroll, Clarke finds herself sinking into them, not even considering bringing it up.

Her arms wrap around Lexa waist as she feels arms encircling her shoulders, bringing her further into the hug, their weight a thousand times more comfortable than what she had experienced just a few moments before – freeing, rather than restraining.

Clarke had opted for flats, knowing she would be driving, but she’s thankful for more than just the added safety when their new height difference allows for her to tuck her head under Lexa’s chin. It’s more than she’s allowed to do, but her head doesn’t have a say in this when Clarke lets her palms rest fully on the small of her back, when she feels Lexa sighing on top of her.

Laughter erupts from the next room and they untangle themselves, a mess of arms and needless apologies. Costia giggles at something Finn said through laughter himself, and Clarke feels a lump finding home in her throat, growing to an uncomfortable size. Lexa recovers faster than she does – but then again, Clarke doubts this hug affected her as much – and grabs two whiskey glasses from the cupboard above them, holding a third in the air.

“Do you want whiskey?” Lexa says, her voice catching halfway through the sentence. Clarke takes a step back, afraid that she made her uncomfortable with the long hug, “I’m getting wine for Cos, if you prefer that.”

“I think I like the wine better,” Clarke says, grateful for the offer. She hasn’t quite acquired the taste for straight up whiskey just yet. She’s eager to do something with her hands other than wriggle them together, so she offers to actually help, “Is it in the fridge?”

“Yes. Corkscrew in the second drawer,” Lexa says, turning to pour whiskey in the two glasses in front of her, paying little attention to Clarke.

She walks towards the fridge and grabs the wine bottle that isn’t the one she brought – that one isn’t ready for serving yet. Then she rummages through the drawer, half paying attention to actually finding the corkscrew, half watching Lexa down her glass of whiskey in one gulp before settling it back on the counter to pour herself some more.

“You look amazing.” The words pour out of Clarke before she can think them through, her eyes watching the slope of Lexa’s neck. She fumbles with the corkscrew, barely managing to close the drawer without dropping the bottle – Clarke takes a fucking deep breath, reminds herself that her stupid crush on Lexa will go away within the month, forces herself to calm the fuck down and not hit her head on the storage space above her to try and shake the stupidity out. “I meant, I really like your outfit.”

Her attempt to correct herself makes Lexa’s lips tug up ever so slightly, which only makes her stomach drop in embarrassment, in something else she cannot lean in to.

“Thank you,” Lexa says, grabbing both drinks and walking towards her, resting Finn’s on the kitchen island as she takes a modest sip of hers. “Costia doesn’t approve. She says it’s too _city_ _like_ and I should have worn a dress instead. But I thought I could honor you tonight.”

Lexa raises her glass ever so slightly in a toast to Clarke before settling it down as well, reaching out to get the wine bottle and the corkscrew from her suddenly inept hands. Clarke lets go and leans back on the counter, putting some distance between them, watching Lexa work the corkscrew, “Yeah, I have to agree with Costia there. You don’t look like you belong to this town.”

“Is that a compliment?” Lexa asks with a raised eyebrow, popping the cork out without any troubles. Clarke prides herself in being able to open whatever bottle of wine someone puts in front of her, but she doubts she could have mustered that elegance.

“It definitely is,” Clarke says, peeling her eyes from the way a simple tee fits so well and turning to the cupboard Lexa points to get the glasses. There’s a beat where Lexa pours the wine into both glasses, and Clarke can’t help but be thankful when she pours much more than what would be considered one glass – she has a feeling she’ll need it tonight. “You two really don’t like each other, do you?”

Clarke doesn’t have to say who she’s talking about for Lexa to understand, letting out a scoff as she hands one of the glasses to her, “I don’t care for Finn, no.”

She takes a tentative sip from her wine, welcoming the warmth it spreads to her – she’s glad to have a tangible source for it now. A gut feeling tells her there’s nothing she can say that will make Lexa and Finn get along, but she has to try, “I know he can be an ass, trust me, but you two aren’t even giving each other a chance.”

“We had our chances, more than our fair share,” Lexa grabs the other wine glass and her own whiskey, leaving Clarke to take Finn’s back to the living room. Her answer is not an answer at all, but before they make it out of the kitchen, Lexa pauses and holds Clarke’s gaze for a moment, “But I promise to keep it civil.”

It seems that’s as much as Clarke can hope for.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/sassymajesty) and also [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/sassymajesty) now! You're all more than welcome to reach out and send me a message - it can be all yelling, I swear I don't mind as long as you're nice. 
> 
> On Tumblr, you can find sneak peeks for upcoming chapters, as well as other tidbits, like gifsets and oh, spoilers I give in whatever message that gives me room for it! And if you want to know more about my writing and other stories, I put everything together in a page [here](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com/writing)!


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